In the Beginning
by Shadowmaiden3
Summary: The only truth you only know is what you've been told, so what if everything was a lie? A twisted take on canon, starting with the scientist who unknowingly started the Mars Project and eventually ending where canon starts. Yay for longer summaries! Previously titled Crusnik: Beginnings
1. In the Name of Science?

I give credit where credit is due! I got inspiration for this from several fics, At the End of Hope, Darklight, and All I Wish is to Dream Again.

Disclaimer: Oh yeah, and I don't own any characters that you've heard of before

I have been getting a number of people reading the first chapter, and that's it. Seriously people, I want to hear what is making you leave. I can't improve if I don't know what's wrong. Flames will be stored with hot peppers and put on pizza.

Summary: They had been poked, hurt, and lied to their whole lives. And they never knew. Abel, Cain, Seth, and Lillith were the only known examples of their species, and the ones who kept them were not about to let them go so easily. A past-fic on the origins of the Nightlords.

* * *

Prelude

A woman was found wounded in a pile of rubble, having miraculously survived a building collapsing on top of her. The medic androids rushed her into an ambulance and whisked her to the hospital, only to be redirected to the Institute of Science.

***Chapter 1***

She walked down the hall, pausing to look at the data screens that monitored their projects. Lisa did not know what to expect, none of their team did. It wasn't every day that you stumbled on a completely new—and intelligent—species.

They had discovered them completely by accident. In fact, it had been only coincidence that had brought them to light.

There had been a building collapse or a traffic accident, she could not remember which, and one of the survivors had been a woman with silver-blond hair. During one of the standard genetic tests to check for irregularities that would require special treatment, the EMT found that the woman was not human. In fact, her DNA did not match any known species. It had been a moment that any scientist would die for, to discover non-human intelligent life—not among the stars, as people had hoped for for millennia—but here on Earth, living, possibly thriving. And they (humans) had never known.

Lisa glanced at the screen again. It seemed that the female was trying something, again. Lisa was amazed at the female's determination. It had been nearly six months since she had been brought here, and since then there had been almost a dozen escape attempts. One had nearly been successful.

An impulse seized her. She wanted to talk to the woman in the cell.

Acting on an impulse was one of the worst things a scientist could do, she reflected as she walked to the observation room. _I so should not be doing this_. She thought as she flipped the switch that allowed two-way communication with the room.

"H-hello? Can you hear me?"

The female paused for a moment. Then she continued picking away the protective covering on the wall panel.

Lisa sighed. Was it even worth it? That damn impulse nudged her again. _Do it, do it, do it._ She resigned herself to being fired when this got out.

"Listen, if you feel like not talking that's fine."

_What the hell am I doing?_

"Why don't you tell me?"

_Did I say that out loud?_

The woman was sitting cross-legged about ten feet from the unbreakable permaglass wall that separated them, "My my, talking to yourself. That is one of the first signs of insanity, you know."

Lisa shut her mouth before any more thoughts could come out.

The female plucked at the gray sweat suit. "I've got nothing but time, whoever you are." She squinted. "Lisa Moravain." She flipped a long strand of hair over her shoulder.

She had absolutely no idea what to say. "Uh, who are you?" _Great, what an intelligent question to...huh?_

"Alexandra." The woman was no longer wearing a neutral expression. She was staring intently at this unusual warden of this scientific prison. "What do you want from me?"

"I don't know...I mean, nothing. I just wanted to talk is all."

The woman behind the glass laughed bitterly. "You just wanted to talk?" She asked mockingly, "Are you sure there isn't something that you have forgotten to try on me? Some torture that hasn't been done yet? Well, here's what I think of you!" With a snarl, she leaped at the wall and..._punched right through it!_

Lisa tried to run to the door, but the female grabbed her from behind and put her in a chokehold. Lisa's hands scrabbled at the female's arm, trying to loosen the merciless grip, but she might as well have been a child for all the difficulty the female was having controlling her. As her vision started to go dim, she heard shouting.

_Don't let it escape!_

_Watch out for the claws!_

Lisa's vision went black.

†

She woke up in a hospital bed. "Where am I?" Then she remembered. Her gasp hurt her throat and made her want to cough.

"Settle down, Miss Moravain."

When she could talk without pain she asked, "What happened?"

"The detaining team successfully captured the female and brought you here for medical treatment."

Lisa closed her eyes, not bothering to press the machine for more details. She stared up at the ceiling for a long, long time.

†

She was released the next day, and was allowed to come back to work. Her husband wanted her to quit her job at the research lab, but she refused. She loved her work too much; being at the cutting edge of science had always made her blood tingle with excitement.

She had another reason to return. The female, Alexandra.

Lisa had had nightmares about her the night before. She had been strapped to a table, tubes coming out of her, and she was hooked up to at least a dozen different machines. The woman screamed, then Alexandra's eyes opened, begging her for help.

What was so disturbing was the fact that it was a memory.

Lisa couldn't not visit her again.

***End Chapter 1***

JUST PRESS THIS BUTTON RIGHT -----------------------HERE----------------------\/


	2. Curiosity

Lisa had to face down several pompous superiors to get the clearance to see the female.

"I am quite recovered thank you...Yes, I know...If I thought I wasn't recovered I wouldn't be down here now would I?!" This last statement was shouted—and it was the one that got her through in the end. Her temper was infamous among her coworkers and she knew it.

Not many were willing to face her down when she got angry.

She stepped across the threshold of the observation deck. There was no security in this section of the building, so she did not have to worry about anyone overhearing what she said—or seeing what she did.

She flipped the switch that would let her talk to the—now restrained—Alexandra. "Can you hear me?"

She was hanging by her wrists from the ceiling; it was a crude, but effective, way to limit her movement. She made no response.

"Alexandra, can you hear me?"

Still no response.

She quickly skimmed the recent history of the project. Since everything was meticulously documented, Lisa thought she could find the reason for her lack of response. There was nothing.

She heard a quiet moan from behind the glass, and Alexandra lifted her head. When she saw the other woman's face, she was horrified.

Her lips were cut and bruised, as were her eyes, and she was barely coherent. She didn't even have the strength to hold her head up.

Lisa quickly found the controls to lower and release the cuffs.

Alexandra collapsed bonelessly to the ground and did not move.

Almost before she knew what she was doing, she found her hand poised over the button that would open a doorway into the chamber. She stopped. Caution made her think about what she was about to do: enter a closed space through a one-way door with a possibly dangerous creature inside. Her hand eased away from the button. She tried to talk to Alexandra again. "Can you hear me? Please, say something." Nothing.

She pushed the button.

Lisa softly walked over to the other woman's side and touched her back. When she groaned in pain, Lisa flinched. She lifted the hem of Alexandra's shirt to find bruises. Many of them, some new, some several days old. They covered her entire back, and Lisa was willing to bet that her front wasn't any better. She was stunned. She couldn't believe the amount of damage that this woman had suffered, repeatedly.

Alexandra tried to push herself up, but she was too weak. Lisa gently rolled her over onto her lap, supporting the other woman's head and shoulders as though she were one of her own children.

Suddenly Alexandra went rigid, her head craned back as far as it would go. Then her head snapped up, her eyes were glowing red, her pupils were narrow like a cat's, and her canines had doubled in size. She was growling deep in her chest, an inhuman, feral sound that send chills down Lisa's spine.

Her hands latched around the back of Lisa's neck and pulled her down. Then she felt a sharp pain on the side of her neck, and then something lapping at the blood pouring from the wound. She tried to push Alexandra away, but her arms were like steel girders.

After a while, she stopped struggling; she was too weak to fight the other woman's strength. She felt cold, lightheaded.

Lisa collapsed.

†

Alexandra desperately wrenched her jaws off Lisa's neck. She hoped she had not taken too much, but she hadn't been able to stop; like a man dying of thirst finding water, she had been half crazed.

†

Someone was bandaging the raw spot on her neck, it felt nice, and when it went away, she groaned in complaint.

Lisa felt very weak. But when her eyes finally blinked open, she sat up...only to nearly pass out again when the blood rushed downward.

"Are you alright?"

A jolt of adrenaline shot through Lisa, and she scrambled away from the female as fast as she could.

She stopped when her back hit a wall. Her heart was pounding franticly as she spotted the female across the room. When she didn't move, Lisa calmed down somewhat. "What are you?"

Alexandra hugged her knees closer to her chest and continued to look at the floor as she answered. "What do you think I am?"

Lisa reached up to her neck...and cloth instead of raw skin.

"Thank you."

Alexandra finally looked at her, surprised.

Lisa looked at the floor as she spoke.

"For stopping. And for this." She said, touching the cloth on her neck.

Neither woman spoke for several minutes.

Thoughts were spinning around Lisa's head like paper caught in a tornado.

_Vampire? No way, not possible...but what else could...The only thing I can think of...but entirely impossible...aren't they ancient myths?_

Then that little voice in the back of her head spoke up._ Girl, that woman punched through a so-called 'unbreakable' barrier yesterday and had you in a headlock, and you are doubting still? Maybe she whacked you a little too hard._

Lisa marked down a point for the little voice.

She looked up into Alexandra's eyes. She whispered, "Vampire?"

She did not say anything, and Lisa took this for a 'yes'.

Strangely, she felt no fear. She got up from the floor, walked over to Alexandra, and she crouched down to look her in the eye.

"Let me see your back."

"What?"

"You heard me, turn around."

"Why?"

Lisa cocked an eyebrow, "One, I'm curious to see how much good I did you, and secondly, you were in pretty bad shape and I have some ointment that might help whatever is left over."

***End Chapter 2***

Oooh, there were sooo many places I could have stopped, like after Alexandra bit her (that would have been mean of me), but I figured I'd be nice.

Thank you VERY much to The Sinless Nurse and Airyie for being the first to review

Authors live off reviews and we'd all starve if it weren't for people TELLING US WHAT THEY THINK!!!!!

THAT MEANS YOU TOO!!!! (anonymous reviews welcome)


	3. Apologies

standard disclaimers apply

This chapter was rather slow, I'm a perfectionist, but it was hard to describe the complex feelings running through this one, Alexandra is hesitant to scare away the person who finally cares about her, and Lisa wants to understand Alexandra. the tension was starting to get to me

* * *

Part of her couldn't believe what she was doing. It was a rather loud part, but it was small, and Lisa didn't pay it much attention as she gave Alexandra a through examination-slash-checkup.

Alexandra's wounds had nearly healed completely, to Lisa's amazement. "Do you always heal this quickly?"

"If I am well…If I get the proper…"

"If you get blood." Lisa finished for her.

Alexandra looked over her shoulder at Lisa, but didn't answer.

"What is it?"

"I keep waiting for you to run out of the room, screaming, 'Monster!'"

Lisa was sad, but not surprised. "I won't."

She sat up, and Lisa sat back. "Why? I don't mean to be rude, but why are you not scared? Everything I've ever been taught about humans..." She hesitated.

"About humans...?" Lisa prompted.

"Says that you should be scared for your life and try to kill me. We were hidden for a reason; every Methuselah knows that if we were found, we would be hunted to extinction." She made air quotes, "'For the safety of humankind.'"

"Methuselah?"

"What we call ourselves. Calling one of us 'vampire' is extremely insulting, like saying, 'Hey, human.' We took the name from a biblical figure—"

"He lived like 900 years, right?"

"Yes, 969 to be exact. He was the father of Noah. Kind of ironic, since we have been considered a scourge on humans, for us to take the name of the father of the person who supposedly saved mankind. We live about the same span, so it seemed fitting at the time."

Lisa's mouth fell open at that. "You live a thousand years? How is that possible?"

Her fist hit the floor with enough force to dent it. "Didn't that stupid DNA test tell you anything? We are constructed differently. You might as well ask how a sea turtle lives two hundred plus years, or why sharks don't get cancer. We're just different!" She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Sorry. I tend to go off when people ask me that." Her voice dropped. "That was all they asked me in the beginning. 'What are you? Where do you come from?' I got so _sick_ of hearing those questions. 'I am myself, and I come from here.' That was always my answer. I couldn't betray everyone, not even to save myself."

Something bugged Lisa. Alexandra was lying about something, she could feel it. The lie was well practiced; the only reason she could tell at all was because she had two teenagers, both _very_ accomplished at the art. However, she didn't push the woman. Alexandra trusted her, and she would respect her secrets.

To break the tension she asked, "How often do you need blood, anyway?"

"Once every couple of months is enough, we can go as long as several years, but it's a kind of starvation. We eat food too, and that we need just as often as you."

Lisa unconsciously touched the bandage on her neck.

"Sorry. I shouldn't have done that."

"No, it's fine, really. I was just wondering. You have been here six months and you haven't had anything, and I doubt the small amount you got from me will last long. Is there some, stash or something for when you couldn't…erm," She cast around for a tactful way to put it.

"Drink." Alexandra finished for her.

"Yes."

"Yes there is, though it would be difficult for you to get."

Lisa was human enough that she had to ask, "Why?"

"The one who has them is my husband."

***End Chapter 3***

Admit it! You didn't see that one coming!

Lol I love writing this, it's almost as suspenseful for me as it is for you.


	4. Enter: Mat

Ah, sorry in advance for the late updates, I have a lot on my plate at the moment, and I have the next chapter almost done, but after I post that I won't be able to update with my regular frequency. Applying for college and keeping up with end-of-the-season sports is taking up a lot of time and I haven't updated my other story in forever, so I'll probably be writing for that one, just to be fair.

Enough whining from me, read on!

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"Ah." Perhaps this wouldn't be as easy as Lisa thought. She could see herself walking up to Alexandra's husband.

"_Hello, we are holding your wife captive and doing experiments on her. Do you think you would mind giving us her pills?"…And then getting ripped limb from limb. _Ah, NO.

"That could be a problem."

Something occurred to Lisa just then. "How can you go into daylight? According to most legends you are supposed to get burned by the sun."

Alexandra tried to suppress her smile. "Always first a scientist. There are a few of us who can go out in the daylight, just like there are some humans who are allergic to the sun."

_And back to the problem of getting her pills and staying alive in the process._ "About your husband, how the _heck_ am I supposed to approach him?"

"I think the safest thing would be if you approached him directly."

Lisa's mouth worked for a second before she found her voice. "WHAT!? And get ripped to shreds seconds later? No thank you."

"Oh shush, I didn't say tell him where I am. Then he would come charging in here to rescue me, the fool. I _don't_ want him captured and stuck in this hellhole. I _never_ want anyone else stuck here.

"Tell him as little as you can. If he tries to help me in his usual way he would probably blow half the planet sky-high."

†

Lisa and Alexandra agreed that she shouldn't visit too often. If her colleges suspected what she was doing, she would be stripped of her job and possibly her life as a scientist.

Lisa was concerned about Alexandra. They had become best friends over the course of only a few hours, and even though they had not had the luxury of time to get to know each other, they had become close. She worried about what Alexandra was going through.

She told Lisa not to worry, that she was fine and she could face anything they could give her.

Anything Lisa said after that would sound like she doubted the other woman, so she said nothing.

†

Alexandra said that after their apartment collapsed, her husband had moved into the inner city. They had been looking to move there before the collapse, and it was reasonable to assume that he had moved there after she had disappeared. Alexandra couldn't remember the exact address, but it was easy enough to find an information screen and look him up.

45872965 H. Britherton Ave. Lisa never liked visiting friends with an H address. It was the abbreviation for 'High', which meant that they were not actually on the ground, but supported somewhere above it. She knew it was silly, but she was afraid that one day when she was up there, it would all come crashing to the ground.

She unconsciously touched the healed bite mark on her neck. As soon as she had had the chance she had used some quick heal ointment and it had been fixed in a matter of minutes. She had let it remain as a scar though, because she thought she needed some kind of proof for Alexandra's husband, Mat. Another old name, she would have to ask about that some time.

It only took a few minutes to find a tram to take her there, and a few more to arrive.

When she saw the house she was surprised. It was an old-style farmhouse, complete with a screened in porch; she didn't think that there were any of those around anymore. Now people preferred a more modern fluid look. She walked up the gravel walkway, _wow real gravel; they really did go all out._ When she reached the front door she hesitated.

After a few minutes felt stupid for hesitating for so long and rang the doorbell.

The door was eagerly yanked open, but the man behind it looked anything but pleased when he saw her. He started to close the door, but she put out a hand to stop it from closing.

"I have to tell you something about your wife."

He moved so quickly he blurred. He grabbed her arm and hauled her inside. Her heart was pounding madly as he practically carried her down the hallway and thrust her into a kitchen chair. "What do you know." It wasn't a question.

She opened her mouth, but she coudn't think. She froze.

"WHAT DO YOU KNOW!!!?" He roared.

She was absolutely terrified; she knew he could kill her without the slightest difficulty, and there was nothing she could do about it. "I know Alexandra." She whispered.

***End Chapter 4***

Ah, sorry about the short chapter folks, but like I said I have most of the next one done.

Plzzzzzz please review *puppy eyes* {**0**­_**0**}


	5. Secrets

Sorry about the late update!! As an apology I made it longer than usual!! And yes, Airye, I'll try to make it longer, but I'm still going to break it up in good places.

* * *

At the sound of her name he collapsed into another chair, his rage spent. "I'm sorry. It's been hell these last few months. I didn't mean to yell at you like that.

"You said you knew something about Alex?" An unbearable hope burned in his eyes when he said her name.

"She told me that she needed some kind of blood pills, and that she would starve without them. I…" He was suddenly out of his chair, standing over her, his face only inches away from hers.

"How much do you know, Terran?" His voice had gone dead cold. A promise of death.

**†**

Mat barely restrained himself from slashing the human to ribbons. She knew where Alex was, but she also knew about Methuselah, and maybe more. He wanted so badly to kill her, but he could not while Alex's fate was in the balance.

"How much do you know, Terran?" His voice was so cold; he could barely believe it was his.

The human had gone white, her eyes showing white all the way around the iris. She absolutely reeked of fear, had he been a little different the scent would have made his mouth water…and the scent of something else, something…familiar, very, very familiar. His eyes trailed down her face, across her jaw, to the double puncture marks on her neck.

**†**

Something caught his attention, and she watched his gaze travel to her neck. Suddenly he grabbed her hair and wrenched her head back to examine the bite mark. When he let her go she heard him mutter something. "I can't believe…feeding off humans."

Lisa's mind was frozen, but then it thawed in a blaze of anger. She was risking everything to even come here, and he had the audacity, the _nerve_, to try to bully her?!

"Back off!" She snapped.

He was so shocked by her tone that he did.

"I am here to save her life, and whatever I have to do I will, including facing down a jerk like you!" Some part of her realized that she was being reckless, but at the moment she didn't give a shit. "I gave her my _blood_, and because of that, she was able to heal. I am risking my goddamn career…hell, I'm risking my _life_, coming here, and you think you can bully me?!"

She drew herself up to look him square in the eye. "That just because you're older and stronger than me, that makes you superior? What is this? Kindergarten?"

**†**

When Mat looked at her neck, or more specifically, the bite scar on her neck, he felt the floor drop out from under him, leaving him floating in a sea of shock.

When he looked at the human again he noticed that she had gone deathly pale.

Suddenly, she stiffened and her eyes flickered. "Back off!" She snarled. She flushed red and sat up, eyes blazing. "I am here to save her life, and whatever I have to do I will, including facing down someone like you!"

With every word she seemed to grow taller. "I gave her my _blood_, and because of that, she was able to heal."

He opened his mouth to demand what she was talking about, but she rolled right over him. "I am risking my goddamn career…hell, I'm risking my _life_, coming here, and you think you can bully me?!" She started to walk toward him with flames in her eyes and he took an unconscious step back.

She loomed over him. "That just because you're older and stronger than me, that makes you superior? What is this? Kindergarten?" The kitchen counter dug into the backs of his legs; he couldn't back up anymore.

**†**

Lisa realized that she was standing and had backed him up against the wall. She was still seething but she could see that she had made her point. She drew back and sat back down.

After a little bit he moved away from the wall and sat down as well.

He closed his eyes for a second as though to gather his thoughts, and when he opened them again she could tell that he had calmed down.

"I am…sorry. I was so…"

Lisa waved him off. "It was nothing. I'm just glad that you weren't any angrier." The joke was so weak that she didn't even bother smiling. Then she paused, unsure of how to bring up the subject that had so enraged him in the first place.

The man beat her to the chase. "Name's Mat, by the way." He said, holding out his hand, which she took.

"Lisa."

She swallowed to wet her throat, then she said, "I came here to help Alexandra, and not for any other reason. And I don't know what else to do, except to ask for your help; you know what she needs, and how to help her the best, and I _can_ help her, if I know what to do. You have to make me one promise though."

"Hm?"

"You have to promise that you will let me handle everything in regard to getting her out. I know all the protocols and what can be done and gotten away with and what will get you caught. If you try to do anything there is a seven in ten chance that you will muck it up."

"You have a deal," The Methuselah's eyes narrowed, "if _you_ promise that you will do everything in your power to get her out."

The look in Mat's eyes tied Lisa's stomach into a three-way sheep's head knot. "I will." Her eyes looked into his, and she realized that she meant it; she had made up her mind then and there without even knowing it. She would get Alexandra out, no matter the cost.

A rattle brought her out of her thoughts. Mat braced a small box spanning his palm with his pinkie and thumb and gave it another shake. "I believe this is what you came for."

She took the small box, for it was no bigger than an eyeshadow case, reverently. "How often does she need them? And can they be crushed?"

Mat's mouth tightened. "You should give her two at first, after so long she will need a feast, and then one every two months; it doesn't have to be exact though. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to crush them, we usually dissolve them in water."

"I'll see that she gets them." With that she turned toward the door to the hallway.

As she was leaving, Mat caught her arm. "Where do you work?"

The bottom of Lisa's stomach hit the floor, and kept falling. "At a hospital of sorts. That's all I can tell you."

His hand tightened on her arm enough to make her hiss in pain, but then he let her go.

**†**

She quickly walked to the nearest tram stop and dialed for one. While she waited she thought about the promise she had made to Mat. And the repercussions that would follow. _I know that if anyone finds out…best not go there dearie, or you might get unsettled. Just do what you have to do, and don't think about it. _Lisa shook her head, trying to clear out the doubts. _If I don't think about it, I can't plan ahead, as unpleasant as it is… I MUST make contingency plans. _Lisa was sure that getting Alexandra the pills wouldn't be a problem; the timing was seldom enough that even if she were to give Alexandra the pills herself, no one would suspect anything out of the ordinary. The problem would be getting her out.

Curious, she opened the box to look inside. They were _white_? She shook one into her hand and rolled it around in her palm. Why was it white, shouldn't it be red? After all blood was red, wasn't it? The tablet was powdery, so it wasn't coated, which meant that the white was the color it was. Something niggled at her lie detector, but she couldn't pin it down.

The tram arrived, so she quickly dumped the pill back into its box and got on.

She sat in the tram, watching the neighborhood, then the city, whiz by. The quiet humming and the gliding speed as they raced along put her into something of a trance, and she jumped when she shifted forward from the speed decrease. "You have arrived at your destination." She slid her payment into the charge slot and walked back to work. She was glad that her lunch breaks were so long; otherwise she never would have made it back in time.

_It feels strange, having a secret that could bring civilization to it's knees, and walking calmly back to your desk to finish the paperwork that you began that morning, when you had no knowledge of the things you are painfully aware of now._

***End Chapter 5***

A/N: I have learned the hard way not to promise to have anything done soon, as then the Universe will do everything it can to see how much you can put up with... so no promises for the next chapter folks, but I _can_ feel another writing binge coming on, so keep your fingers crossed!!

~ Shadow


	6. Itch

Lisa finished her report on the effects of phosphorus tetrasulfide an hour later. It really was busywork but she wanted some time to think about something else, even for a little while.

"Are you going home now, or do you have something going on tonight?" She jumped when an arm snaked around her waist. "Because I'd love to take you out tonight. If you're open, that is."

She squirmed suggestively, "I don't know. What exactly do you have in mind?"

Someone whispered into her ear, "Well, I was planning on taking you home and making you _sambaal_, then…"

That devil, he knew her weaknesses just as well as she knew his. But she could hold out longer. "Hmm, _sambaal_? Got anything better to offer? I do."

"Oh?" whispered the voice, "What?" His voice was rough. So he was straining, was he?

She pushed herself back against him, making sure to create friction. "I'd have to show you."

He shuddered. "Vixen."

She laughed as she spun around in the circle of his arms and planted a light kiss on her husband's lips. "I know."

†

She stretched lazily, savouring the feel of the satin against her skin. A finger slid down her spine, and Jac's other hand wound up to knead her breast.

"And a good morning to you too."

She put her hand on top of his. "Why don't I get up and make us some breakfast, hm?"

"Sounds wonderful."

She put on a robe and made her way to the kitchen, only to realize that as wonderful as the _sambaal _last night had been, it wasn't wonderful enough to make up for the mess Jac had left in the kitchen. She loved him dearly, but if he couldn't clean up after himself... She shook her head and sighed. When he wanted to do something, he did it without a thought for the consequences, and it was one of the things that she loved about him.

Unfortunately for him, it also meant that he had left dishes everywhere.

As she hunted down the frying pan she tried to clean up a bit, but hadn't made much headway when he came down the hall.

He leaned on the doorjamb. "I remembered making you dinner last night, but strangely enough I don't remember cleaning up. Why don't you go back to bed and I'll handle making us breakfast for once?"

"How about you get a robe on and make breakfast and I'll clean up." She countered. Sometimes she thought that the only reason that they had met was because Jac was too nice a person to drown in his own messes.

†

After breakfast—and an episode with pancake batter that had left a bigger mess than the _sambaal_—she said, "I might be working a bit later than usual tonight. There are some things that need to be done that I've been putting off, and I was hoping to get them done today."

"And when do they need to be done by?" She could hear the laughter in Jac's voice.

"By tonight." She didn't sound guilty. Did she?

"And how long did you have to do them?"

"About a week."_ Bless it, darn it, and every other mild expletive._ She did sound guilty. His weakness was messes, and she procrastinated like nobody's business. "I know, and don't start in on me just yet. I won't be needing more than an extra hour."

†

"Hey Lis! Hey, what's that in your hair?" Wendel reached out and snagged the offending clump. "Looks like batter. May I inquire as to…?"

"Jac and I had a pancake war this morning, if you must know." She hurriedly took back possession of her hair and combed out the dried stuff. Wen loved a good rumor and would follow you around until he got something. There was a reason everyone in the department called him "Paparazzi".

"So, how are you, since that wild female attacked you…what, all of three days ago? It isn't every day that we get a break out."

Lisa decided to do some careful fishing for information, since the subject of Alexandra came up without her bringing it up. "I'm fine. More than fine. In fact, I went down there just the other day, to make sure that I wouldn't have any lingering fears. The last thing I want is to be unable to work because of repression, or whatever it's called. Have you been there recently?" She tried to project 'I'm babbling about nothing of consequence and I just want to chatter mindlessly', knowing that Wen would happily share anything if he had an audience, and it didn't necessarily matter if the audience was attentive or not. Her private nickname for him was "Gossip Bucket", and hopefully there were a few fish in the bucket this time, along with all the blather that he usually picked up.

"Oh no, I haven't been to that wing in a very long time, ever since I got promoted the work load has been too much for any real research. Though I did hear that Mofryn has been down that way more than usual, something about," he made air quotes, "'almost there'. I think the workload is getting to be too much for him. The Reports Department is still buzzing about that essay you wrote, not that your idea wasn't interesting, but that was several weeks ago, and you would have thought they'd move on to something a little more recent. Like that female we discovered; I'm certain that people would be thrilled to learn that we have another intelligent species living among us, I mean, it's not every day that one of mankind's dreams are fulfilled, people have wanted for so long to meet and alien, well, perhaps she isn't an alien, but she isn't exactly human either. People are afraid of the oddest things, don't you think? I mean, come _on_, it's not like, just because the head honcho is afraid of a little culture shock that that means the rest of the populace will be too. And I don't understand why, out of all thirty people on the team only you and a few others aren't afraid to go near her—the female, I mean. You of all people have the license to be afraid, if anything, you should be the one cowering under your desk. Wait that came out wrong, what I meant to say was... Oh, never mind, I'm sure you understand what I mean, everyone else is afraid of her now, while the actual victim is walking around as though..."

"Here's my turn, I'll see you later." Lisa's brain cells were slightly frayed after actually paying attention to what Wen had to say. He was a nice enough person, but that man's tangents had tangents.

†

She made her way down to her workstation, but once she sat down, she couldn't concentrate, so she did what everybody did when they got bored in the middle of a genetics simulator laboratory.

She started to create the most bizarre creature she could imagine that would actually function. An hour later, she had something that looked like the child of a greyhound, elk, puffer fish, and giraffe, and in the challenge, most of her jitters had gone away.

Or at least they were reduced to a level that allowed her to work and _not_ to write a five-year-old's comments on the article she had to either endorse or rip to shreds.

She forced herself to read the report on genetics material and write half of another report on why the first one was poppycock. It was only eleven o'clock by then and Lisa groaned aloud at the thought of spending an entire _day_ like this. She, like most of her colleagues, was a rather solitary person, preferring the company of a computer to another person, but it seemed today was the exception

She finished her report by noon and sent it as a reply to the person who had submitted it. She still felt like crawling out of her skin with restless energy but she had no idea of what to do with herself.

She restlessly paces around the room like a tiger in a cage, doing small things to tidy up like straightening a spilled pile of papers and cleaning her calendar screen of out-of-date reminders, but somehow doing these small things was almost worse than doing nothing at all. _What a wonderful phrase, crawling out of your skin, it fits my mood perfectly._ She ran her fingers through her hair and looked at the pocket that held the object of her impatience.

"Ach! Why can't I sit still!"

With every step, her lab coat's pocket and the object in it swung out and hit her in the thigh—it burned her, or at least, it felt like it did.

She took out the offending—and innocent looking—box that Mat had given her, and the source of her agitation. She held it for a while, looking at it, before tossing it up in the air and snatching it down.

***End chapter 6***

gah! That was a tough one to beat out. Listening to Wen talk was bad enough, but actually having to write it down... blech.

and thank SayahYagashi for the early update, I had kind of forgotten that I had the next chapter written :3


	7. The Organization Called TREE

I don't like the title "Never Say Never" and I would like to change it, but I'm out of ideas.

The person who can give me the best title will win the answer to any question they care to ask, or a look at the next chapter, though I can't tell you the ending.

* * *

As soon as she made the decision to visit Alexandra's cell every bit of Lisa's excess energy fell away like snakeskin. Now she knew what had been causing her anxiety, and she did not like it one bit.

She normally had iron control of herself, and the fact that she could not even control her own eagerness scared her a little. _I am getting into this too deeply._

†

Lisa walked down to Alexandra's cell instead of hopping on a scooter like she wanted to as an exercise of self-control. She needed the time alone to calm herself and remove herself from the situation as it stood and look at things objectively.

One: She had been attacked by an experimental subject two days ago.

Two: After being released from the medical ward, she had gone down to the cell where the subject was kept, against everyone's advice.

Three: She had entered the cage upon seeing the subject badly bruised and beaten.

Four: When she had tried to comfort the subject, the subject had been overtaken by bloodlust and had bitten her.

Five: After she was bitten, the vampire had tended her wounds, and they had talked, and she had learned that they were called Methuselah rather than vampires, along with the Methuselah's name, Alexandra.

Six: Upon learning that the Methuselah had a husband, she had gone to visit him to acquire the pills that Alexandra needed.

Seven: She was now going to give Alexandra her pills to keep her alive long enough to escape.

Lisa opened the box and counted the number of pills there, twenty. That should be more than enough time for her to rescue Alexandra if she only needed one pill a month, which gave them almost two years. More than enough time.

She walked up to the door which led to the hallway that Alexandra's cell branched off of and stood on the pad to let the security procedures take their course.

"Welcome, Dr. Lisa Moravain."

She walked through the door and waited for it to close behind her, as she always did. These security procedures not only measured things about what she looked like, but also something of her habits—like that she paused and waited for the door to close—not that anyone would ever guess such a small thing, which was probably why they put it in there to begin with.

"Anyone here?" She shouted. _Why did I say that, instead of 'is anyone else here'? My brain must be going to use such an old phrase. Must be those 22nd century novels I've taken to reading lately. _

She was rather engrossed in her thoughts, so when a voice said, "Welcome, Lisa Moravain, new member," she nearly jumped through the ceiling.

The voice continued, "Please proceed to the control panel, your briefing will await you there."

_What the...? Briefing? What do they mean? And who is 'they' anyway? Did I say some secret code or something? She laughed to herself. Oh that'd be the day, I unwittingly say some secret code and get into some kind of super high-security...huh?_

She looked at the control panel-slash-info screen, but it was no longer such a panel. She looked at it a bit longer, trying to will it back to normal—or to wake up, either would work. Nothing happened. As she expected.

The screen now had a block of text.

The Creed of the Unleashed

This order was founded to nurture and keep under control those who would learn  
about nature and her various gifts. We vow not to attempt to create or destroy, or  
to allow those who would to come to a position of power. We vow to hold every  
life as equal to every other, and to place no life form above or beneath any other.  
We shall not attempt to rule over any life, nor shall we influence those who do. We  
vow only to guide, and if necessary, redirect.

We shall stay apart from those we guide, acting as a parent to a child, always near,  
but the influence never visible to those who are influenced.

We vow that we shall hold to our ideals and this creed, even through discovery and  
punishment; even unto death.

Lisa shuddered violently as she read the text on the screen. "Even unto death." She whispered. What was this that she had gotten into? The document itself looked simple enough; there were no tricks or double meanings as far as she could tell, but for all its simplicity, it was a very foreboding article indeed. In essence, agreeing to this document would be the equivalent of selling her soul; for all that it may have been a creed, it was also a contract, and it was as binding as blood.

She was bewildered, no not bewildered, she was overwhelmed, by the choices before her. She could accept and play along with whatever was going on. She could decline. Or she could accept and turn them in.

She stared at the screen until the print was swallowed up by the white brightness of the screen. The claustrophobia of these choices, the fact that her life could only take one of three paths, threatened to break her.

By following the first, she might have the chance to get access to high-security information, if she was not caught.

The second idea appealed to her, but she could not know what he results would be. Her imagination showed her images of her memories being taken, of someone examining her mind, them finding out about Alexandra and being found later in the slums, of her simply vanishing.

There was no third option; turning them in was pure folly, a group as organized as this would have infiltrated the authorities long ago.

There was no choice at all.

"I accept."

"Welcome Lisa Moravain, Trainee."

A hologram of a pleasant looking man in a formal suit appeared. The shape of his eyes showed he had an Asian ancestor in his family history. He looked rather startled and adjusted his glasses, then he cleared his throat. "Forgive me, but your appearance is different than I expected. I am called Jacob; I suppose you could call me the leader of this organization. I am the elected head of the group called the True workers of the Empire, or TREE. We are the ones who 'watch the watchers,' as it were. We are the people who keep the power between the people and the government in balance."

Lisa's head was spinning with everything that had happened in the last five minutes, but she tried her best to hide it.

"You look confused. Don't worry; we didn't give you the specifics because we wanted to be sure you were with us before telling you anything that could be compromising."

She nodded. "Of course." At least that logic made sense.

"I would like to know one thing. How is it that in the file on you that I was given, it said that you were five-foot-eight, but here you stand at barely five-five?"

Lisa's lips pressed together in irritation, "Did you hack into my medical records to get that data?"

"No." Jacob seemed amused at her reaction. "We gather all our data from people around those we wish to know about. We do not stoop to such methods as breaking and entering, even in cyberspace."

Though his voice held no hint of a threat, it was there. He had not said it, but the word "investigate" echoed behind his statement. She could never know for sure who was part of this, or who would be reporting back to him.

She gave him a sardonic smile, "I believe that your informant forgot to mention that I frequently wear heels. I believe that would account for the discrepancy?"

Her formal speech only served to amuse him further, and he answered equally formally, "Yes, I believe it would."

She stayed silent, waiting for him to lead the conversation.

"I suppose you're curious as to what you will be doing in this organization."

Finally, this was what she was waiting for.

"We need you to keep an eye on subject 2846-61800-5484-973." The number appeared in front of him. "We figured that since you seem to have taken a special interest in that particular subject, it would hardly be a burden for you to continue doing so."

Lisa felt sick. That was Alexandra's number. _They know, how could they know, I have been so cautious to disguise what was going on._ Her vision seemed to darken slightly, and she felt the first hint of vertigo.

"Miss Moravain, are you feeling alright? I think you need to lie down." Jacob said, worried. He tried to help her into the chair, but his holographic hand passed right through her.

She took his advice and collapsed, nearly missing the chair. Almost immediately, however, she bolted upright again, fresh panic rising over her extreme reaction. There was no way someone as proficient in reading people as Jacob seemed to be could have missed the way she was acting. She stifled her feelings as best she could, even as she felt a scream clawing at her throat, begging for release.

When people used a hologram, they only wrote words when it was something that could not be said aloud, the equivalent of whispering. So when, suddenly, some text appeared in front of Jacob she was somewhat surprised. Don't worry. No one else knows.

How? She mouthed, astonished.

More text appeared. You could say that I have taken a personal interest in this case. "If that is all, I'll let you get to it then."

Lisa, still pale, nodded curtly, understanding perfectly.

***End Chapter 7***

I can't believe it!! Chapter seven done only a day after I got my flashdrive back!! *jumps around screaming for joy*

I was really not expecting this, and I'm dying to see where it goes from here!

I also just read a fic titled, "If I Ever Lose My Faith in You" by Darth Stitch and I highly recommend it

I would also like some feedback as to whether I should turn this into an arc, a story on Abel's past, and then a story on his distant future. I'm not sure, let me know what you think!


	8. Enter: Adrian

Please let me know if the... ahem, chapter rates as a rating change, I'm not sure, so I'm going to leave it as is for now, and if you don't understand what I'm talking about, you don't need to, it's not central to the story at all.

* * *

"All you have to do is ask the right question and I'll be here to answer any questions you might have." He said as his hologram blinked out.

Lisa stared at where Jacob's hologram had been; trying to believe what had happened. Then a flash of silver-blonde caught the corner of her eye and she saw Alexandra peering at her worriedly through the permaglass. Lisa pried herself out of the chair and pressed the button so they could talk.

"Who was that man?" Alexandra asked. "I was careful to stay out of the camera's field of vision, so he didn't see me, but it looked like he said something that scared you."

"He did." Lisa leaned against the glass wall and slid down to the floor. She was exhausted. Too much had happened in too short a time.

†

"Lisa!! Lisa!" She felt a pleasant vibration on her back. It felt wonderful after such a stressful day. Then something whacked her head hard enough to send it crashing into her chest and rebound to meet the glass wall again. "Owwow!!" she complained.

She looked behind her to meet the eyes of a very concerned Methuselah.

"What was that for?!" She demanded.

Alexandra looked at her angrily. "What kind of question is that? You pass out on me and you expect me to do nothing? What kind of person do you take me for?"

"I fainted?" She didn't remember fainting at all. She had sat on the floor, then… She couldn't remember.

"Yes, and I spent almost ten minutes banging on the glass, trying to get your attention." Alexandra answered testily.

Lisa remembered something just then that brought her head snapping around to meet Alexandra's gaze. "Guess what I have." She said, grinning. She stealthily slipped a hand into her pocket.

Alexandra looked shocked, and then she beamed. "I knew you could do it."

She looked at the other woman and said, "Well I didn't." And for the second time she opened the glass wall and walked into the room.

Alexandra waited anxiously until she brought out the small box. "Do you want water?"

"No, I don't need it."

Lisa smiled, it sounded like Alexandra was salivating so heavily that she had all the liquid she needed.

Alexandra swallowed the pills, and then sighed happily. "Thank you so much, you have no idea how good it feels."

She smiled back and sat down; patting the floor next to her, where Alexandra joined her. "If it feels anything like eating the one thing you're craving during a pregnancy, I can sympathize. Two was more than enough for me."

Alexandra looked down and pressed her hands to her stomach as though she wished she could give a different answer. "I wouldn't know what that's like."

Lisa understood and reached over to the other woman, covering her intertwined hands with her own, offering support. "How long?" She asked, gently.

"Mat and I have been trying for almost twenty years now." She bit her lip, trying not to burst into hysterics, but she couldn't help the tear that left a salty trail down her cheek. "We both want children so badly, but no matter what we try, nothing works!" Alexandra shut her eyes tightly, but to her embarrassment, the tears flowed relentlessly down her cheeks.

Lisa slipped her arm around the woman's shoulders and rubbed her back in soothing circles. "It took my husband and me almost five years for me to get pregnant, and that was after several years of not _trying_. If you know what I mean." She winked at Alexandra, who gave a weak chuckle.

"Sorry." She wiped her eyes on her sleeve. "I get emotional when I'm frustrated."

"And I suppose you're frustrated now?"

Alexandra gave her a don't-even-get-me-started look. "Of course I'm frustrated, and not just mentally either. All I want right now, more than anything, is to be with Mat. Or doing one of Houdini's escape tricks without a hidden key. Keh, I wish I _was_ Houdini, and then I'd just disappear." She flicked her hand like a magician pulling a handkerchief off a dove. "I just want _out_."

"Who's Houdini?" She had never heard of such a peculiar name.

"I'll tell you later." Alexandra hugged her knees tighter to her chest as though trying to make herself smaller. "You should leave, someone's coming."

Lisa's heart leapt into her mouth and she quickly got to the control panel and closed the glass. She took a few deep breaths and continued to face the panel as though she were working; and stayed there for a few seconds. When nothing happened, she turned to Alexandra, angry that she had said there was someone coming when there was not, and then she heard the quiet beep of a door activating.

"Hallo!"

Lisa recognized the trademark greeting and continued turning to face one of her best friends. "Oh, Adrian, hi. I was just finishing up here."

Her best friend and crony smiled. "Good, would you like to share a lunch table with me, or would you rather go somewhere more pleasant than the crowded cafeteria?"

Lisa knew a friendly invitation when she heard it, she also knew when there was more than one layer to an offer.

"I'm still not going to go out with you. I'm married, with two teenage sons, remember?" She flashed her wedding ring like a shield, hoping that Adrian would drop it. She loved his company, but if he kept this up she would have to decline his offer, permanently.

"I don't mind."

_And that's the problem._ "Goodbye, Adrian."

She absolutely _hated_ the fact that he wouldn't give up on her, even though she had made it _very_ clear in college that she did not want to date him anymore.

_That persistent little..._ She had a small flashback. _ Perhaps not so little._ She mentally corrected herself.

_He didn't seem to tire as he pushed into her again and again, each time hitting the spot that brought her closer to the edge, her mouth opened in a silent scream of rapture as he shifted position. Her nails dug hard into his back, and her body sang with the sensations he was creating._

Lisa sighed at her friend's persistence, and knew that she would forgive him as she always had. Even though they no longer shared a bed, they still enjoyed each other's company. Of course, it helped that Jac had no idea of what she had been up to in high school. If he did, she doubted that Adrian would remain unscathed, or in her company, for very long.

Adrian had been her friend throughout her school career, and was still one of the people she relied on when her life got too chaotic. He was one of those rare people that could forgive almost any transgression. Whenever she lost her temper around him he did not get angry with her, instead he tried to find out why she was angry and fix it. But that was why she broke up with him when they were in high school. They had never gotten into a serious fight their entire relationship, and even though that was nice, it was also frustrating. Lisa was a fiery person by nature, and every now and again, she needed to blow off some steam. However, since she never fought with Adrian in those months that they were dating, the emotional pressure built until she finally snapped under the weight of the petty arguments that she had not been able to vent. In the end, she broke up with him, claiming that she "did not want to date someone who couldn't stand up for himself."

Their break up had been messy and painful, but Adrian, in his endless acceptance, had immediately set about in the task of getting her back.

Just like his ability to placate her, his practice of forgiving and continuing on as though nothing had happened was just too much of a good thing.

Lisa turned back to the control panel and fiddled pointlessly with some of the buttons. "I'm rather busy right now anyway."

A breath stirred the hairs on the back of her neck. "What were you doing before I came in that you are trying so desperately to hide? You know you can trust me with anything."

***End Chapter 8***

*sigh* normally I don't write any kind of lemon/citrus at all, but somehow this one snuck in. I'll admit I've read enough of them to know what works, but... I don't know where I am going with this. That particular portion was written after reading too many lemons on too little sleep.

Anyway, sides of me I've never seen before aside... How did you like this one? I was particularly proud of the last chapter, but apparently I'm the only one. Please review, praise or criticism, I don't really care. Something is better than nothing. Believe it or not, authors do care about people's opinions, we wouldn't publish if we weren't.

**And a final A/N:** the new title contest is still on.


	9. The Mystery of Joseph

_**All standard disclaimers apply; besides, I'm a broke college student, though I'll hand over the debt if you want to sue me for that.**_

~*~*~*~

Lisa brushed past him, walking swiftly to the door, but Adrian snatched her wrist and halted her flight.

"Tell me what you were doing."

"Nothing."

"You were doing more than nothing, I could tell, your eyes always get bigger when you're lying."

Lisa stopped trying to tug her wrist from his hold and looked him in the eye. "I swear, I was not doing anything. Now let me go!" She would not give him what he wanted, no matter what.

Adrian's face contorted in an uncharacteristic scowl. "Tell. Me. What. You. Were. Doing." He growled.

"Let me go before I file harassment on you!"

Adrian, still frowning, kept his hold on her wrist. Lisa looked up into his eyes, somewhat unwillingly, and saw herself reflected in his eyes, her red blouse giving his irises an eerie reddish tint. He looked down at her, and suddenly his face softened. "Please let me help you." Was it just her imagination or did his eyes really look less red?

Lisa didn't hear his offer, instead she heard, "Tell me everything."

"Let go of me, you..." She gave her captive wrist a vicious wrench, trying to loosen his hold on her arm, and nearly hit herself in the nose when he let go. He swept out through the door and it closed.

Several seconds too late, Lisa grabbed a pen off the panel and threw it after him. "That... That _man_! Jerk!" The pen bounced off the door and rolled under a chair.

Alexandra came up close to the permaglass. _Can you hear me?_ She mouthed. Lisa shook her head, and then remembered something. She grabbed an earpiece and put it on. She couldn't use them for overlong because they always gave her a headache, and even though everyone else said that it was all in her head, it hurt enough that she knew it wasn't. She had to laugh though, even though it had been _centuries_ since they were invented, the little gizmos had hardly changed since their first appearance under the name Bluetooth. When she had tried to tell one of her colleagues the joke, however, they had looked at her as though she had something large and green in her teeth. Apparently she was the only one interested in the history of electronics.

Lisa put on the earpiece and said, "Who's Houdini?"

Alexandra roared with laughter. "I knew it! I just knew that would be the first question out of your mouth!" She continued to chuckle, "You could say that he was the best magician who ever lived. There wasn't a lock he couldn't pick or a box he couldn't get out of. Even if part of his tricks were sleight-of-hand there are very few people who could pull off even the simplest of them without serious injury."

"I can see why you would say that then." Lisa paused, and then added, "I promise I will get you out."

"I'll hold you to that." Alexandra said.

"Can I ask who that was? You didn't look very happy to see him."

Lisa pursed her lips, "He's the man I dated in college, and we had a pretty ugly breakup. We try not to talk much these days."

"Speaking of strange people, who was that holographic man who appeared a while ago? He actually made you faint, something I wouldn't have thought possible, given your current situation."

"What do you mean by that? My current situation?"

Alexandra ticked off on her fingers, "You work in one of the most prestigious scientific institutes on the planet, you work in an elite division in that institute, you have been attacked by one of the specimens, and now you are sitting in front of me asking me what is so unique about someone who made a person like you so stressed they passed out. Do you see my point?"

Lisa rubbed the back of her neck, "I guess I see your point."

"So who was he?" Alexandra prompted.

"He was the leader of an organization called TREE and from what I understand..." Her narrative died on her tongue when Alexandra's eyes suddenly flashed blood red.

"What did you say?!" Alexandra's voice had deepened and coarsened and she looked infinitely more dangerous at that moment. Suddenly the barrier separating them seemed all too thin.

"The organization is called TREE and I have unintentionally become a member." Lisa shook as she heard what she said. Alexandra was strong enough to kill her with a thought if she so wished.

The other woman stood very still, and then let out a breath. "Unintentionally?" Her voice was closer to what it had been.

"Yes, I said a code phrase by accident and I had no choice but to accept their offer. What do you know about them?"

"They have pulled the strings of many people over the years, making them dance to whatever tune they desired. They have caused the downfall of several organizations and companies and they are completely ruthless when it suits them. On the other hand, they averted several disasters by preventing the rise or causing the fall of others. They switch leaders every time they feel they need to; in essence, they have an organized mutiny if the head is not doing what they want. This also means that there can be one leader for decades at a time. What kind of man did it seem he was?"

"He seemed nice enough, I don't really know until I can meet him in person, but I did not sense any malice." Lisa tapped her lips. "He tried to help me into a chair before I fainted."

"Did he tell you his name?"

"He said it was Jacob."

"Jacob. Jacob." She said the name like a winemaker testing a new vintage, rolling it around in their mouth to get an idea of the quality. "I have not heard of him before. Did he say he was recently appointed?"

"No, now that you mention it, but he seemed very young to be running the kind of group that you say he is. He didn't seem very comfortable with the role either." _He is probably a puppet for someone else in the group, though he seemed intelligent, a dangerous trait for a figurehead. Then the question would be whether he knows it or not._

"He's probably a puppet for someone who doesn't want to come out and risk themselves."

Lisa smiled, "I was thinking just that."

"Do you know why they asked you to join? Normally they wouldn't just accept people who accidentally say the code phrase."

Lisa clutched her head with both hands. "No, I don't. I can only assume that they did not know the person who would be coming in. It would make sense, in a warped kind of way. If they don't know who the person is, someone else can't find out who they are and use that person against the organization before the organization has had a chance to sway the newbie to their side. Ugh, intrigue has always made my head hurt." She moaned. "I'd normally ask if you wanted to go get something to eat about now, but..." She paused, trying to joke with the other woman who obviously couldn't go anywhere but Alexandra didn't appear to have heard her.

"Do you know why he asked you though? What is interesting about your team that they would be willing to take one of you in?"

Lisa peeked out at her from under her bangs. "I don't know, Jacob said that he had a personal interest in this project."

Now it was Alexandra's turn to sit on the ground. "A ...sonal intr..." Her voice was too faint for the mics to pick up. Suddenly she straightened up. "See what you can find out about this interest of his, for all we know he could be one of us and "interested" in getting me out."

Lisa blinked at her peculiar choice of pronoun. "Us?"

"I-I meant, like me, a Methuselah, that's all."

"I'll see what I can find out."

†

Alexandra had spent more time than she ever had in her life thinking. What else was there to do?

She had nothing to do. Nowhere to be. No one to talk to.

So she thought. And now she had something to occupy her thoughts.

She had known about TREE for a long time, though she had never been unlucky enough to run into them. She knew that she couldn't afford to get caught by them, or her life would truly be a living hell.

†

It had been nearly two days before Lisa had gotten the courage to walk back into the observation room and speak the code phrase. She had had a dream for the last few weeks that had greatly unnerved her. She was a scientist and normally she would dismiss things like dreams as the ramblings of her subconscious, but a recurring dream that lasted for several weeks was not something even the most dedicated scientist could brush off easily.

Lisa shook herself out of her reminiscing; she had work to do. "Anyone here."

There was a short pause, "Yes?" The image of a portly elderly man appeared. "How can I help you?"

"May I speak with Jacob please? There was something that I need to clarify with him."

"Certainly, may I have your name please?"

"Lisa Moravain."

The man disappeared, leaving her with the distinct feeling that she was being put on hold. The only thing that was missing was... _And queue the elevator music._ Lisa sighed, some person probably thought it was funny to use telephone tactics with holograms. She wasn't amused. Next thing she knew, she would be humming along, and heaven knew where that would leave her.

After about seven minutes and twenty-nine seconds, she saw the telltale foggy fuzz that preceded holograms.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Jacob is preoccupied, could you come back at a later time?" Obviously he was not an employee at the Institute or he never would have dared to sound so self-important. Nobody had ever taken that tone with her and lived, including her boss.

She put on a sugary smile and said sweetly, "Of course, may I ask when he would be available? I have a rather busy schedule myself so it may not be possible to meet with him right away, since I am rather busy here at the Institute. Would you be so kind as to tell me the times when he will be available in the next week or so?"

The man's bushy eyebrows rose, fell, rose, until she nearly burst out laughing and had to choke back the giggles that escaped. "Um, certainly, let me see." His image fumbled around an invisible desk, but she didn't think that he was really looking for anything, other than an excuse to get rid of her. "Here we are, there are very few times he will be available, even in so large of a time span. I believe there is something available in a week but..."

Lisa nodded as though she believed the bullshit that he was spewing. When he paused for breath, she interrupted him by sucking a breath through her teeth. "Ah, I'm sorry; I'm going to be in meetings all through next week, perhaps something sooner?" He stuttered, but she continued, "After all, being a researcher here does tend to fill up one's schedule, and I went to all the trouble of clearing today so I would have time to see him, I guess the matter I needed him for will just have to wait..." She trailed off.

"I-I-I'll see what I can do. I will contact him immediately, yes-yes, immediately. Just one moment please." He walked out of the reception field of the transmitter, only to return a few seconds later in bits and pieces as he appeared to bow someone onto the transmitter pad.

Lisa snickered; it was so easy to manipulate someone else's dogs.

As Jacob appeared, she composed herself and ran over what she wanted to say.

"Lisa, is there something that you need to talk to me about?"

†

"I see."

"There is one more thing I wanted to ask you." She paused, picking the words she wanted to use. "Is there anything that you wanted to know in particular? So I know what to look for when I am reporting back to you. It would save us both time if I can tell you only the information that concerns you, rather than the tremendous amount of trivial and occasionally redundant information that I would otherwise be forced to pass on to you. I think that it would be far more prudent to have me filter out the necessary information instead of..."

"I would much appreciate it, except I don't really know what I am looking for myself."

Lisa mentally inclined her head at his clever dodge. "I will simply tell you everything then." She hoped she would at least not have to send him a paper report so she could have a chance to read his expressions.

"That would be wonderful." He looked over his shoulder. "Yen, Lisa is to be allowed to interrupt anything in order to give me her report, so don't occupy her time for any reason." Faintly in the background she heard something that sounded like, "Yessir." and she grinned. He sounded rather cowed.

"Well, that's that, I suppose, if you will excuse me." With a bow he stepped off the transmitter pad.

And reappeared a few seconds later. "Could you give me summary of her so far?"

:Of course. Lately she seems to have recovered from her previous weak state, though the cause of her recovery is still unknown." Jacob smiled. _Knowingly? _She wondered. She paused, unsure of how to continue, "May I assume that you already know about her records, and I do not have to reiterate what happened previously?" Jacob nodded. "Though the cause of her weakness is still unidentified, we have determined that she has reached levels of strength that were previously unknown. There have been several different speculations as to why her condition has improved, among them that someone slipped something into her food." She watched his face carefully for a sign that he understood her hint and was rewarded when his eyes widened slightly and flashed away from hers and back again.

She kept her face composed and continued, "There were no other changes except that it seems that she somehow seems to possess other unknown abilities whisch she has not demonstrated, though some others hope it is only a matter of time before they surface."

"And you? Do you hope these abilities 'surface' as you say?"

Lisa hesitated before answering carefully, "I think that if she were to use her full strength we would pay a large price for satisfying our curiosity."

"Do you speak from experience perhaps?"

_Yes._ Her stomach clenched as she answered. "I speak from reason. Such power would not be something that any reasoning being would use rashly, and since she is still here she must possess enough reason to know that if she was to escape, she would force everyone to acknowledge her, and that would be the downfall of her species."

"I see." Jacob bowed to her for the second time that day. "I bid you good day."

†

Jacob turned off the holo-transmitter and thought about what Lisa had said. She had been hinting at something, and those suspicious scars on her neck only proved that it was something worth looking into.

He had known about Methuselah for a long time, but there was something about that woman that didn't sit right with him. He could not put his finger on what it was, but something was off.

Why had she refused to show herself? She should have known instantly that he wanted to help her whether she could see him or not, but she had kept herself hidden. He shook his head; there were some things he would never understand.

Even as long as he had lived, he had never seen anything to pique his interest the way that woman, Alexandra, did.

†

Lisa collapsed into a chair. "I don't think I have been that stressed that much since my first job interview."

Alexandra stepped out of the corner she had been standing in. "I trust him."

Lisa lifted her hand off her eyes to peer at her friend. "Really?"

"Ieh. I mean, yes."

"Alright. I trust you then."

*****End Chapter 9*****

Es tut mir leid! Gomen! Sumimasen! I'm sorry! I really didn't mean to get this far behind on my updates, things just didn't go the way I planned.

PS. If you didn't get all the hints that there is more to some people that you think, go back and read it again and I guarantee that this chapter will qualify as angsty.


	10. Schemes

Happy joy!! I have another one done!

~*~*~

"Is there something bothering you Lis? You seem really off."

"I'm fine, just a little stressed out from work." She took a bite of her ravioli and looked her husband and children in the eye, "I'm fine." Her oldest, Mick, had insisted that they all take her out for lunch, to her favourite restaurant, of course.

"So what are you working on this time? Or can't you tell what you're doing in that white box?" Jay joked.

Lisa figured she would let a little slip; after all, it couldn't hurt to let them know a little bit. "We are investigating the possibility that another intelligent species inhabits this planet."

The people sitting around her met her announcement with dumbfounded silence. Then the stillness shattered.

"What?!"

"Really!?"

"Whaddayameanintellegentspecies?!"

"I mean, Jay, that there is a distinct possibility that there is another intelligent, reasoning species on this planet living undetected by us."

It was almost completely quiet except for a quiet "Wow." from Jac.

She took a sip of her lemonade and continued, "We have found enough proof to warrant a thorough investigation, so we are looking into the matter."

"Is that all you can say?" Jay asked.

"I'm afraid so, though something big is going to happen soon. I can feel it."

Mick raised his eyebrows. "Miss Clinical Investigator is going with a gut feeling? Watch out everyone, the sky must be falling!"

"And what about that time you refused to leave the store because you said it was going to rain? You saved us all a soaking, Mr. I-Don't-Believe-in-the-Paranormal."

Mick snorted and buried his face in his milkshake.

†

"What have you found out so far?" Alexandra asked.

"Ab-sol-ute-ly _nothing_." Lisa collapsed into a chair. She was dead tired and wanted to curl up in a ball and die.

"Well, I guess we'll just have to keep looking."

_Who gave her the right to sound cheery? I'm the one doing all the work. _"Who's this 'we'? I'm the one doing all the looking." She snapped.

"This 'we' is the one who processes the information you gather and comes up with ideas." Alexandra replied snippily.

"If it weren't for me, you'd be stuck where you are with no hope!"

Alexandra's mouth opened but nothing came out, and her eyes filled with hurt.

Lisa spun on her heel and walked out, leaving the other woman standing behind the glass. _Who does she think she is?! She has no right to demand information like that, I'm the one doing charity over here! _

_**What you're doing is childish, go back and apologize! You're asking gold for chicken feathers. There is no way that she could do any more, and what she is doing is more than enough, for goodness' sake, she's guiding you through this thing with TREE, if it weren't for her you'd be blundering around blindly!**_

Guilt twisted through Lisa's gut as she listened. _I can't go back now!! That would be too embarrassing! _

_**You're afraid of a little embarrassment, when it could save one of the most important friendships you have? That's pathetic.**_

Lisa's legs swung around of their own accord and she found herself going back the way she came.

She got back to the room and hesitated. _W-Wait!! Stop! What if... I don't want..._

_**You don't want what? To repair your friendship?**_

_No! I don't... _Her legs took her up to the permaglass wall. "Alex?" _**There, now you can't get out of it! **_**Apologize!**

"Alex." The other woman twitched but didn't turn around. "Alex, I'm sorry. I was an ass."

Alexandra's shoulders started to shake and Lisa heard her chuckle. "That's one way to put it." She turned around and the redness around Alexandra's eyes made her want to crawl under the floor.

Lisa walked into the cell and faced her friend. "I'm sorry, I was demanding too much, there is no way you would be able to help me the way I wanted and I knew it, I just..."

"You needed to blow up, and I needed a meltdown. It's alright. This has been stressful for both of us. Hasn't it been nearly half a year since we first met?"

"Don't you mean since you last had me in a headlock?" Lisa joked.

Alexandra lightly slapped Lisa on the arm. "Oi, give me some credit, I didn't snap your neck."

†

Lisa's eyes _snapped_ open and she lay in her bed staring at the ceiling that was invisible in the darkness. She had had that dream again.

_She stood in a crowd of several thousand. It was cold, or cold to her. What was happening was so utterly wrong... And there was nothing she could do to stop it. She was totally helpless._

_There were several rumblings that shook the ground under her feet and she saw a white tower growing toward the sky, taller, taller, ever taller. Then her perspective changed when the bottom of the rocket came into view. _

_She lifted her hand in a gesture of farewell, and there were tears rolling down her cheeks. She was losing something important but she could not remember. _

"_Farewell, Lily." She murmured. _

Lisa shivered and rubbed her arms. Rationally, it was nothing more than worries and subconscious ramblings coming to the surface, but she could not convince herself that that was the entire truth, or indeed, even a part of the truth. She feared that what she was seeing was reality.

†

There are many things that aren't understood by anyone, and there are things that need no explanation. There are things that don't seem logical at first, but fall into perfect order upon examination. Then there are those that make sense on the surface but if you look closer, you can see pure nonsensical chaos.

Alexandra Yemal watched the unchanging ceiling of her cell and asked herself which of those her situation was. It was one of the last two she was certain, though it made no sense no matter how she looked at it.

She tried to look at it from another point of view. _If I had discovered a new species, I would want to know everything about it. I would want to know what it ate and what its habits were, what roles it played in the world._ That made sense. _I would want to know how many there were, where they came from and if it had any special abilities._

What she couldn't understand was how, even after she had proven she was just as 'human', for lack of a better word, as they were, they still kept her locked in here. They didn't even know what she ate, or at least the part of her diet that mattered, so there was no real reason for them to keep her here. Perhaps they were afraid of the backlash that would follow. But these were the greatest minds that this planet had produced, they had to have figured out that there was no way she could tell anyone about what had happened. People would eventually ask, 'Why did they put her in there to begin with?' and then there would be too many people investigating for them to go undiscovered. Sort of.

They had to know that. But even so, why did they continue to keep her contained?

Alexandra amused herself by imagining the looks that she imagined certain people would wear if they knew _everything_, and laughed.

†

Jac gazed over at his wife of thirty years—or was it thirty-one now?—and wondered what had been going on for the past two months. She had become much more withdrawn and rarely laughed anymore, and she was still saying that everything was all right? He wanted to help her however he could, but the thing was, he didn't know what he could do besides try to make her comfortable. He needed to know _what _was making her this way.

There were a few things he could do, but he knew that she wouldn't appreciate it if he looked through her files on her computer at work. Not to mention that he would do some serious time if they caught him.

He decided that he would see if he could convince Lisa to let him in on the pretext that he had left his ID in her office when he brought her lunch a few days ago. It would be his best chance if he were going to try his wild scheme at all.

†

Lisa wanted to know what was going on. Joseph was avoiding her calls today and it wasn't just the ordinary avoidance, she couldn't even get his dog of a receptionist to answer, and not for lack of trying, she had just finished hissing, _quietly_, some things into the receiver that she knew no one could ignore. Oh, it was nothing compromising, just _really_ insulting.

She switched off the receiver and looked over at the woman behind the glass wall. Alexandra was frustrated as well; Lisa left on the two-way comm link by 'accident' so she could listen and perhaps catch something that Lisa missed.

Alexandra looked at her, vaguely impressed. "I believe that was the most unusual way of stringing together those particular words that I have ever heard. I admire your creativity." Lisa glared at her. "No luck then, huh?" It was obviously a rhetorical question and Lisa didn't bother to answer.

"I have a bad feeling, and I can't help wondering which bucket of shit is going to hit the fan. Jacob's lack of availability is only confirming things."

Alexandra flipped a strand of her strange silver-gold hair out of her face and exhaled loudly. "I would love to say that you are being oversensitive, but I've been feeling the same lately. I think we may be right in the middle of it and there isn't a good way for _us_ not to hit the fan as well, as you put it."

"I just wish there was away to know what was going to happen beyond bad feelings."

Alexandra's eyes glinted with amusement. "That is a highly un-scientific statement coming from you"

Lisa stuck out her tongue. "Knowing the future would be very convenient about now." Lisa eyed her friend, and asked playfully, "Who do you think is going to come through the door next?"

"I think you're going to be the next person through that door."

"You think you're that unpopular? Let me tell you, I was lucky to be one of the people who _was_ allowed to see you. There are absolutely uncountable numbers of people that would _kill_ to be sitting where I am right now."

Alexandra looked at her, unconvinced. "Uh huh, _sure_. Then where are those people lined up outside the door right now?"

"They have their own work to do, believe it or not. There is a clever system in place, actually. Whenever something really interesting comes up, there suddenly is this rush of busywork that, suddenly, they cannot put off any longer. Only a few people are considered for delicate (and interesting) projects."

"And you are one of those people."

"Happily, yes."

† **the next day...**

Her phone rang during a particularly busy time of the day and, irritated, she picked it up. "What!"

Jac sounded slightly taken aback at her tone. "Uh, sorry, Lis, is this a bad time? I just wanted to ask you something."

Lis sighed. "Sorry, I didn't mean to snarl, it's been really busy around here and I feel like I don't even have time to sneeze."

"Sorry to hear it, I wanted to know if you could let me into your office? I think I forgot a piece of paper that I need when I brought you lunch the other day."

Lisa looked around her messy office and decided that it wouldn't hurt to let him look for his own paper since she no longer knew which paper was what anymore. "Oh, no, it's not a problem, I'm leaving around five o'clock. Just be sure to be there before then."

"I will."

"Bye, love you."

"Love you too, bye."

*****End Chapter 10*****

You probably can't see it, but things are starting to move. In a few chapters we'll get to the scene that she... (I can't tell you that, woops!) Well, a bit after that we'll get to Abel's POV!! Yippie!!

Oh, and the new title thingy is over. I did manage to think of one.


	11. Fruition

I don't remember ever churning them out this quickly. I guess I do write better under stress.

~*~*~

Jac rushed up the stairs and through the doors of Lisa's office just as she was leaving. "Good, you're still here." He gasped. "May I?"

Lisa smiled at his antics. "Of course. I have an appointment that I need to get to, you know the way out, right?" When he rolled his eyes she realized that, _of course_, he wouldn't have been able to find his way in if he didn't know the way, _duh_.

"I'll see you later then."

Jac looked around the corner and blinked a few times. "I will probably get home after you do." If he was 'searching' for a paper he would have plenty of time to look around; there were stacks of the stuff all over the room and a few of them had fallen over, creating a slippery carpet in places. He had brought the paper he was supposed to be looking for, just in case she wanted to see it when he got home.

As soon as Lisa left, Jac abandoned his, naturally fruitless, 'search' and walked over to the computer. He couldn't believe his luck. Or maybe it wasn't luck. He looked up at the ceiling and silently asked a question. _Is what I'm going to find absolutely vital? Geez, this is going to sound bad, but could you let me know somehow? _ He nearly jumped through the ceiling when Lisa's computer beeped.

"Please close your files before leaving the room. Please close your files-"

Now he was _sure_ it wasn't luck. Not only had she not shut down her computer, but she hadn't closed what she was working on either. She was supposed to shut down her computer before leaving and he knew she would not forget, normally. He walked over to the computer and opened the most recent files. Quickly he scanned them, not really trying to remember what was there, figuring it was best if he only remembered what he couldn't help remembering.

He didn't know what to look for except that it didn't have anything to do with her usual work. She had never been this stressed from work. In fact, she was usually excited by her job and it wasn't work so much as a well paying hobby for her.

It was something out of place. Something that didn't fit into the overall scheme.

He had already exhausted most of the obvious files and he was thankful that Lisa was someone who regularly cleaned out her computer; else he would have had to sift through heaven-knew-how-much information.

He clicked on the last folder that he had not checked yet and was not rewarded. He stared at a report about the effects of some chemical or other and wanted to bang his head against the desk until he knocked himself out. He was out of ideas. He stared at the screen, looking for anything he might have missed but found nothing. He got up and paced around the room, trying to think of where _he_ would hide something he did not want found. He snapped around and kicked the wall under the garbage chute. "Damn it all! Where the fuc..." He stopped mid-word as the realization hit him. He quickly found his way to the recycle bin on her computer and opened it. There was a single file there. He opened it, but it was password protected, so instead pulled out a flashdrive and saved it. Then he went into the history and erased all traces of what he had been doing.

He could get the password out of her later, she talked in her sleep.

†

Lisa smiled devilishly as Jac walked through the front door. It appeared his search had been successful.

†

Jac began a monotone monologue. "Hey Lisa. It was pretty stressful today. There was nothing to do and I came up with the crazy idea that you might be hiding something. I wanted to know if you were." This was usually what got her to talk in her sleep. He didn't know why, but it worked, and Sleeping Lisa was more honest than Awake Lisa.

"Uhuhmph."

That sounded enough like "uh huh" for him to ask, "Was that a yes?"

"Mm hmmm."

Excellent!! He was on the right track! "I found a file on your computer that needs a password; it was in your computer's Recycle Bin."

"Alexandra."

"The password is 'Alexandra'?"

"Uh huh."

"Thank you."

Lisa smiled in her sleep and said, "Don' mention it." And rolled over.

†

The next morning Lisa left early to get something done at the Institute, clean her office she said. This gave Jac some privacy to look at the file he had copied from her computer.

He typed in the password and held his breath as it opened.

At first glance, it appeared to be a diary of her day-to-day worries at the lab.

_Wen was annoying today; he wouldn't let the gravity problem go and kept asking me what he should do. How should I know! I'm biology, not physics!_

_I wish there was something to do; activity seems to have some to a standstill ever since that female arrived. There is only so much one can do with regular procedures, soon you start repeating yourself. I have been assigned to her and as interesting as it seems, I think that the time between discoveries has been greatly underestimated._

Jac kept reading; there had to be some reason she had this hidden like it was. There were a few more pages of similar complaints then he saw something that he had to reread to be sure he had seen it correctly.

_I was attacked today by the female I am assigned to. She broke through the permaglass like it was paper and she had me in a headlock before I knew what was happening. She was successfully contained and I had no injuries worth mentioning._

Jac couldn't help but be surprised._ Attacked? She doesn't seem scared. It sounds almost... Dismissive. _He continued reading.

_I spoke to Alexandra today, I mean really talked. I found out that she is not human but Methuselah, a long-lived race that lives by drinking blood. I couldn't believe it either. She needs some kind of medication that will prevent a repeat of the episode she had today. Since I have no desire to be perforated again I will see if her husband will relinquish the pills._

Jac could not believe what he was reading. There was no way that such a thing as mythical creatures could exist, that's why they were mythical! _But if this is true…_ Then his wife had been attacked by a—he had to make himself think the word—vampire. Not only that, she had agreed to _help_ this vampire.

If this was true, his world had been turned on its ear and he still had ninety degrees to go. He had no doubt that in the end everything would be completely upside-down. And here was the kicker:_ there was nothing he could do about it. _ He felt a giggle bubbling in his throat but cut it off before it could turn into hysterical laughter.

_I visited Alexandra's husband only an hour ago. He is desperate to get Alexandra back, enough that he would let me, a human, and one he doesn't know at that, handle the process of getting her back. There is something up with Alexandra and Mat but I don't know what it is. The pills I got for Alexandra are white, not red, and when she first called herself a Methuselah something was off. I don't know._

Jac was at a loss to understand what was going on. There was no way that there could be vampires roaming around! Could there? He had a feeling that things weren't going to get any saner.

†

When Lisa walked in the door, she knew that Jac had been up to something. He looked like he desperately wanted her to tell him it was all lies and that there was nothing about the world that wasn't what he knew. Instead, she settled for, "Is everything alright?"

Jac gave her a look that said, _you had to ask that, didn't you? _and, _are you kidding me?_

"What's wrong?"

Jac did not waste any time getting to the point. "What _exactly _are you working on at the Institute?"

"I thought I told you that the other day." Lisa said. She wanted him to say what ever it was so he could get it off his chest.

"No, you told us you were _investigating the possibility_. From what I've seen, you have gone a long way from investigating, you're actually studying. Unless everything I've read in your little 'diary' is nothing more than a hoax. _What is going on, Lisa?_" As he spoke, he held up the flashdrive so she couldn't mistake what he was talking about.

"Where did you get that?"

"I took a look around your computer after you were left. I repeat, Lisa. What is going on?"

"_What_?!" She wasn't mad about him sneaking into her office, she was mad about him lying about why. _Why can't he simply say that he was worried about me?! He didn't have to tell me that he left something in my office._

"I'm sorry for deceiving you, but I needed to know what you were doing. You haven't been yourself lately and I was worried about you."

Well, _that_ melted her anger away like a flamethrower on a snowflake. "I've been stressed, yes, but it's also true that I've been lying to you. I had to. What would you have said if I told you what was going on? You would have locked me in here and not let me out until I was fired, admit it!"

Jac rubbed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Are you saying that what you're doing is healtier? Honestly you've become friends with a vampi-"

"Methuselah. They are Methuselah."

"Whatever, '...by any other name...' They are still a danger to your health and I cannot let this continue."

Lisa's temper flared as he insulted one of the people she cared about but she kept it in check. Anger would not get her point across. "Listen to me, Jac. These people are no more a danger to me than you are. We snatched Alexandra out of her home and dumped her into a cage at the Institute. Are you telling me that there is anything right about that?" Alright, maybe she couldn't keep her anger out of it.

"No, but that doesn't matter. You..." Jac's narrative died off as he saw her eyes blaze.

"'Doesn't matter.'?! She has endured God-only-knows how many months of hell and you want me to let that continue?! If that is really how you feel I can't believe I married you." Oh, she was mad and there was no turning back.

Jac felt like she had sucker punched him. "Lisa! Please, that's not how I meant it. I don't want you to be in danger, you are their prey, and I don't want you to see you get hurt because of that."

"I don't care. Yes, I might be prey to them, but as far as I am concerned, she is suffering and I'm the only one who can stop it! At first, I even... Oh, God, I even helped." Lisa started to sob. "I hurt her, Jac, I hurt her and I didn't care." She had collapsed and Jac's arms were holding her up now. "I didn't care because I thought it was okay! Because I was told to, I... I-" She choked and couldn't continue. _I'm a monster. A remorseless monster._

Jac didn't know what to do. She was in such pain because she had hurt another living being, but he couldn't understand why she felt such guilt for something that would kill her if given half a chance.

Lisa's sobs had nearly stopped and she gently pushed herself away from him. "I am going to help her and there is nothing you can do that will stop me." He opened his mouth to say something but she put a finger on his lips. "And if you try to tell anyone what I'm doing I _will_ leave you."

Jac regarded her sadly, knowing that, if it came down to it, she would keep her promise.

†

"So how long have you known her?" Jac was still reluctant to call Alexandra by her name but Lisa didn't bug him about it.

"Six months more or less. She actually broke out because she thought I was mocking her. It _was_ an honest request." Lisa giggled as she remembered.

Her laugh disturbed him slightly. "In your diary you said something that led me to the conclusion that she has drunk your blood. Is this true?" He didn't want to know, but at the same time he felt that he had to ask. The very idea made him sick.

Lisa reflexively touched the twin scars on her neck. "Yes, she was starving after several months and could not help herself. It didn't help matters that she had been severely beaten only the day before."

"Severely beaten?" Jac knew his voice wasn't firm but he was too shocked to do anything about it.

Lisa's gaze sharpened. "Yes, as punishment for breaking out. I can only guess at what else she has endured. It was my help that allowed her to heal without complications and I would do it again in a heartbeat." The look on her face said he would suffer if he dared to argue.

_Help. What a nice way to put it._ "You said that you met her husband. Is he a... one of them?"

"Yes, as far as I know there hasn't been much romance cross-species. Though that would be interesting to find out." She finished thoughtfully.

Jac wrinkled his nose in distaste and Lisa smiled and rolled her eyes.

*****End Chapter 11*****

Well, I took rowergal's advice on this one and tried a different angle on things, though I don't know if it really counts...

**Anyway, review peoples or I'll come after you with an armful of poison ivy!!**


	12. Shifting Alliances

**A BIG thank you to crusnik O2 for letting me use her poem later on!!**

**WOOT! 20.000 words!!! I can't believe it took me this long to write that!!**

And it's time for my sporadically stated disclaimer! YAY!! *crickets chirping* Abel Nightroad isn't mine, nor is anybody else that has been mentioned by Sunao Yoshida. (But oh, if they were…) Besides, if I owned Trinity Blood I wouldn't need a Disclaimer!

Life is hectic right now, so sadly my priorities (read: energy levels) are going to be shifted around. BY NO MEANS IS THIS A HIATUS. I **will **most certainly keep working on this, but I will not be updating as much. (you're thinking, 'Yeah, like she updated regularly anyway.') Anyway, I will not surrender, even if an ugly Essay rears its head, but it might take me a bit.

* * *

"Will you help me?"

"I suppose." Jac wasn't happy about any of it but he refused to let her do this alone.

Lisa started formulating a plan. Once Alexandra was out, they would need decoys. And a form of transportation. If Jac could supply those, everything else would probably come together.

Jac sighed and Lisa didn't miss the statement he was so reluctant to voice. "Listen, I know that it seems strange, risking everything for someone who I've only known for a little while." She paused, then said thoughtfully, "I suppose you could say that we are kindred spirits; I see something in her that makes me want to be a better person. That's why I absolutely cannot leave her behind."

Jac closed his eyes in surrender.

"I should probably talk with Mat and see if we could all get together to come up with some kind of strategy for this. It is going to take more than just the two of us to pull this off."

†

Soon, she was standing on Mat's front porch with a grumbling Jac at her side. She had said to him that he would understand why she was going so far when he saw for himself.

Unlike the last time she had visited, this time she easily walked down the pathway, up the stairs and knocked on the door. She didn't expect him to remember her—it had been almost six months—so when he opened the door wide she was somewhat surprised.

"I didn't expect you to be back so soon." He rumbled. "I was expecting at least a year or two before you would have sufficient resources to attempt anything."

"You could say I was both blessed and cursed on that front." Lisa said with a wry grin. Turning to look at Jac she said, "I'll explain what I mean in a bit."

Mat looked puzzled but let it go, then his expression shifted back to neutral and he asked, a little too calmly, "So, who is he?"

"Mat, this is Jac. Jac, Mat. Jac is my husband."

Jac looked at Mat as though sizing him up and Lisa started to get slightly nervous but didn't interfere. Therefore, she was rather surprised when Jac stuck his hand out, and Mat gladly shook the offered hand.

Mat looked over at her and asked, "Does he..." But seemed unsure of how to continue.

"Everything that I do." She said, trying to reassure him, but he was not reassured and his lips pressed together in a thin line.

"Very well. Shall we go inside?"

A few minutes later they were all seated around Mat's kitchen table and a mug of tea was pressed into their hands. "Here, drink up; it's a blend that Alexandra came up with."

Lisa tried hers and found it to be quite tasty. _Cinnamon, vanilla, and something else too. It's really good!_

"Now, about Alexandra. How are you going to get her out of that lab?"

Lisa's grip on her cup was white-knuckled. She hadn't told Mat where Alexandra was being kept and she didn't know what she should say to keep herself out of hot water.

Mat looked at her hands in a significant way and said, "I looked up where you work, once I knew what you looked like it was pretty easy to find out."

She took a calming breath before she answered. "I was hoping that a request from one of the leading people would get her moved to a different location where it would be easier to break her out of, or, failing that we could disrupt the transport."

Mat nodded. "A classic, and an effective one too. And if that fails? If they ignore your request?"

"I would attempt to cause enough chaos inside that there would be enough of a distraction for her to slip out."

Mat nodded in agreement. "May I ask what level she is being kept on?"

"Thirty floors under the ground floor." Lisa frowned at this new wrinkle, the only way out was one of two elevators and they were both extremely sensitive to how much weight was on them and how many people had come and gone that day. If the numbers didn't work out an alarm went off.

When Mat and Jac asked what was wrong and she had explained she was surprised to hear Mat's laugh.

"Believe me when I say that is not a problem. Is it a straight shot all the way to the top?"

Now she was curious. "Yes."

Mat grinned. "Then there won't be a problem."

Lisa reigned in her tongue with difficulty. "I'll take your word for it. Once I get her out of the lab, I will need some way to get her out quietly. It wouldn't do to have a noisy escape when we went to all the trouble of staying out of sight inside."

"Leave that to me." Jac's voice cut into the conversation. "I think I know enough about this city to cause a fair bit of chaos on my own. It wouldn't take much to jam the trams and mess up the stoplights."

Together Mat and Lisa broke into wide grins.

"I think we're in business."

†

For all her eagerness the night before, Lisa was feeling the effect of the real world make itself known through the periodic jolts of terror that shot through her every time she thought about the potential repercussions. _This is much harder than everybody makes it out to be. In all the stories I've read no one is this nervous. _Lisa stopped and considered the fact that her stomach was rebelling. _And NOBODY _throws up_ in the middle of things. Nnngh._

She dragged herself down to Alexandra's cell and tried to compose herself, though she only partially succeeded; she still felt distinctly green.

"Hey, Lisa." Alexandra's voice was soft. "You feeling okay?"

She laughed shakily. "I'm fine and dandy. It's just nerves."

"What do you have to be nervous about?"

"Plenty. Believe me."

"Maybe you should tell me about it, I might be able to help you find a solution."

_It's the solution that's making me nervous._ "I don't think anything you could tell me would help very much. I might be losing my job in the near future."

There was a muffled thump as Alexandra literally stumbled in shock. "Wh-why?

Lisa decided against being witty and just said what she felt. "I'm going to keep my promise and get you out of here, and I doubt that someone won't notice that I was involved."

When the words left her lips, Alexandra stared at her as though she had never seen her before. Then her knees buckled and she sank to the floor, weeping. "I'll be free. I'll be free..."

†

When she heard what Lisa said, the joy was too much to bear. It choked her lungs and crushed her heart with hope. "I'll be free." She whispered. "I'll be free." She realized that she was no longer standing, but she didn't care for any lost dignity, she had already lost everything, and now she was going to get it back. She wanted to fly through the sky, kiss the stars and hug the moon, she wanted to make love to her husband and see the children that haunted her dreams; she knew there was more to life than pain and blank walls, but she had begun to forget what it was to be _alive_.

That was what had terrified her the most. In the depths of what she called "Dark", that was what caught her and held her there, in the depths of despair and loneliness. The fear that, eventually, she would forget what it was like to walk down a crowded street, the feel of the wind, the sun, on her skin. She couldn't stand the thought of becoming attached to this place. The thought that she would eventually fear _leaving_.

She would have given her life at that moment to be able to hug Lisa and crush the breath from her lungs and thank her in her own way.

†

Watching Alexandra, Lisa's depression lightened. How could she be in the presence of such joy and not feel a little herself?

When Alexandra stood again, her face absolutely glowed with happiness. Neither woman knew what to say at that moment, so they simply stood, observing each other.

Alexandra was the first to break the silence. "When?"

Lisa understood the monosyllabic question perfectly. "In a few weeks. I'm going to try to get you moved to another location that is less secure, or at least one that _I_ would know more about. They don't tell you anything about what the security is like here." She grumbled to herself. "If that fails, if the location that they choose isn't one that's less secure, then we will try to disrupt the transport route. If they refuse to transport you, we will have no choice but to break you out."

Alexandra blanched and Lisa was about to ask her what was the matter, but then she saw the reflection in the permaglass. Jacob's image had appeared at some point.

She froze to stop herself from shrieking or doing something stupid like trying to explain what she was doing. She examined his face and even as a hologram he managed to convey a smug, _knowing_ expression.

"Hello Jacob." She was proud of the fact that her voice didn't break, it only quavered a little.

"Hello Lisa." He was… _studying_ her, like a fisherman who had just caught something he had been after for years. It was not a comfortable way to be looked at. "I'm glad you're okay. Talking to such a creature as this can be deadly."

Alexandra, who no longer had to hide, snarled, "I am not a twin!"

Jacob ignored her completely. "You remember what happened the first time you talked to her, don't you? You should know better than anyone that she is nothing more than an unusually intelligent wild animal."

Lisa fixed him with a flat stare that should have reduced him to ash, hologram or not. "That is such an asinine statement that I cannot decide whether to tell you to fuck off or find your sorry ass and kick it into your childhood so you can try harder to get yourself killed."

Jacob's expression was hurt, but it looked as hammy as anything that Jay or Mick had ever pulled. "You wound me. I was only concerned for your well being."

"Shut up. You could care less what happens to me or anyone else on this fucking project. All you want is information. What happens to us is of no concern to you. Both you and I know perfectly well what would happen to me if she got out."

He eyed her shrewdly. "Exactly how much do you know about me?"

"I know that you are a lot like me. You have decided that the reason that you were born is to find out as much about the world as you can. Nothing is more exciting than a discovery. You prefer to work alone, and you like to have power, especially power over other people, but you only let yourself really use your strength when no one knows how strong you really are or who you really are. The sum of your life is: Knowledge is Power."

For a second, his face became an emotionless mask, and then he covered it with a sarcastic smile. "I see that you have read me quite well over the last few weeks. If you know me so well you should know what I want."

_She had him!_ "You want to know what Alexandra is, correct?" He nodded. "I propose we make a deal. You help us free her, and I will tell you what you want to know."

†

Jacob was sure that Lisa could not tell him what he wanted to know. He was reasonably sure that he already knew what she was going to tell him. On the other hand… If he could arrange things so that the woman was indebted to him… He chuckled. Maybe he could get the information he wanted after all.

†

Jacob stood unmoving for several moments. When he spoke, the change in his posture and the way he spoke told said he had managed to outsmart them and put himself in control, all in the same second. "All right. As long as you let me speak with… Alexandra, was it? I want to ask her a few things once she has been released."

"If Lisa is present at the time, I agree." Alexandra was tired of being ignored. "However, if she is not in the same room at the time, physically present and fully functional, you shall not hear a word out of me." She could have been requesting that it be dark in her bedroom for all the emotion in her expression or voice, except for her eyes which glinted like frost covered diamonds.

There was barely a second's pause before Jacob inclined his head.

Lisa shot Alexandra a warning glance, and Alexandra pulled one shoulder up into a small shrug. Lisa sighed; she wanted to turn the tables back on Jacob, but there wasn't really much else they could do. Jacob had them cornered.

Even so, that didn't mean that they were entirely powerless. Alexandra spoke. "Since we have decided upon your, payment, it is only courteous that you return the favor by informing us of what services you shall provide and how your assistance will be lent to us. After all, it would set a bad precedent if you were to accept such a large boon and then help us but little." She suspected that "Jacob" was much older than he appeared, and perhaps it was a Freudian slip, but she spoke in an archaic form of English rather than the modern one.

She expected some kind of reaction, but there was nothing, not even a sparkle of amusement or muddy confusion. The former would have emphasized his age; the latter, his youth. Except there was no reaction at all. He was better at controlling his features and emotions than some of the oldest and most experienced diplomats she had met in her lifetime. _He could teach the art of non-responsiveness to a quadriplegic._ His level of control hinted that he might be half her age, an accomplishment worthy of a medal.

His face broke into a frown then, somewhat disconcerting once she knew how easy it was for him to mask his reactions. It would be very difficult to tell if anything he was showing was genuine or not. Suddenly he spoke. "I will not promise anything, but I will take into consideration whatever you request."

That promise did them about as much good as a paper bag during free fall. He could deny them everything they asked of him without making a lie of anything he said.

"Remember that it is worth for worth. Our arrangement is only valid if I escape. If, for example, I were to be recaptured, it would be highly unlikely that I would be able to answer anything."

Jacob's lips curved up in a small mocking smile. "I will be sure to keep that in mind."

"Be sure that you do."

Lisa felt a vague sense of unease, coupled with a tingling thrill that shot through her like the electricity of adrenaline.

_Something big just happened, and the world is going to shift on its foundations because of it._

*****End Chapter 12*****

**Oi! People, just because you have this story on alert doesn't mean you shouldn't review! **(you know who you are) (not you rowergal) Reviews are life!!(Constructive criticism welcome, if this chapter was so bad you wanted to puke/so boring you can't believe you didn't fall asleep… I want to know! I can't fix it if I don't know something's wrong. **All this silence makes me think this story's not even worth writing**, and heaven knows there are other things that I could spend my energy on.)


	13. At Last! Escape

Umm, disclaimer, right. I don't own Trinity Blood or anything that will be mentioned in this fic… Though since I haven't really said anything yet I wonder if I need a disclaimer….

I'm soo sorry, with everything life's been throwing at me I have barely had a chance to write. Writer's block and all that, does anyone have plot bunnies for adoption? I am really sorry I'm so late… And I can't promise that I'll be any better.

**One of my favorite authors, Ravyn Skye, has just had a story of her deleted because some people don't understand the saying "don't like, don't read" and have reported several of her stories, one of which has been deleted. Even though I was not a fan of that particular story I hate it when people try to tell you what you can or cannot do just because it suits them. There is a reason that there are warnings AND DON'T GO CRYING TO THE ADMINISTRATION IF YOU KEEP READING ANYWAY. Yaoi, yuri, lolicon, shoutacon, if you have an issue with them then don't read them, but don't take good stories away from the rest of us, GOOD AUTHORS ARE RARE ENOUGH AS IT IS WITHOUT YOU -PHOBICS TAKING AWAY OUR GOOD READS. The deleted story, "The Lolicon Collection," a Sess/Rin fic, can be found here on Mediaminer: www(DOT)mediaminer(DOT)org/fanfic/view_st(DOT)php/165290**

†~†~†

After a few seconds Jacob disappeared, but Lisa wasn't taking any chances. _Do you think that he means what he says?_ She mouthed, blocking the camera's view of her mouth with her hand.

Alexandra shrugged.

Lisa shrugged back; even though shrugging was a little weaker of a reaction than she would have liked, it was the only thing she could think of.

_The difference,_ Lisa thought, _between a speculation and a_ _fact is that facts can be verified. _The frustrating thing about all this business with Jacob was that _nothing_ could be verified. Lisa didn't want to risk asking for much information in case the questions themselves would give her away. It was so _frustrating _working blind.

They couldn't know if he would keep his word unless one of them developed an aptitude for mind-reading and from the looks of things it wasn't likely.

Lisa's eyes wandered around the sparse room, not landing on anything in particular until she saw her pen rolling off the table. She made a lunge for it and it bounced off her finger tips. When she went to snatch it up the pen rolled even further away. She growled and went to retrieve it, but when her fingers touched it, she suddenly remembered what Jacob had said. _"As long as you let me speak with, Alexandra, was it?"_

Alexandra had agreed to the arrangement, as long as Lisa was present at the time, but Lisa wasn't sure that she really wanted to know her friend's secret. Secrets were only secrets if they were kept, and as a member of the Institute she was obligated to share any knowledge gained. She didn't want to have to choose between her passion and Alexandra's friendship.

She didn't want to—but she had a feeling that the Universe didn't care what she wanted.

Her hand was frozen in the act of catching the pen, now about a foot away, and she realized that she had been frozen like an idiot while the pen continued on its merry way. Embarrassed, she snatched up the annoying thing and slapped it back into its holder.

Whatever happened, happened. She couldn't control what she couldn't see, so she should stop agonizing over what she couldn't do instead of doing what she _could_.

Resolute to keep this new way of looking at the future, she turned to Alexandra and asked, "Do you really trust me enough to tell me what is going on? You know my obligations to the Institute and what might happen to both of us if this doesn't work."

"Is that a nice way of saying that you might not be the best person to confide in?"

"Yes." It felt horrible but it needed to be said.

Lisa knew that she would not be able to keep any secrets if the people she worked with were determined to find them out, nothing could keep them from discovering what they wanted to know.

The thoughts of the discoveries that her colleagues had made were not ones that she wanted to have, pictures of psychic manipulators and other things that were too dangerous for public release or disclosure were the majority of the things flashing through her mind.

Lisa got up from the floor and sat down in a chair. The potential consequences of failure loomed all around her, but she forcibly shoved those thoughts into a back corner of her mind and set to finding solutions to potential problems. If the transport was low security they could use the old standby of creating an accident and using that as a distraction. That was assuming that they needed to hijack the transport, if they could break her out of the lab itself... No, that wouldn't work... Too much risk involved; a last ditch alternative.

She absentmindedly chewed her lip as she thought.

†

There wasn't much left to do, Alexandra was waiting for her signal on the beeper that Lisa smuggled her--a very low-tech one that would not be detected by any of the sensors--and Lisa was anxiously trying _not_ to look anxious as she waited for the verdict on what kind of transport would be used. Thankfully the transport car with the highest security was booked solid for the next week carrying highly sensitive chemicals and lab equipment to another location, so that was one non-potential problem, but there was still the chance that something more secure than they could handle would be used. Lisa had done everything she could in keeping the plans a secret, but there was always a possibility that someone had gotten suspicious about all the activity around Alexandra and upped the security.

There was also good ol' bad luck.

The page finished loading and Lisa breathed a sigh of relief. _Low security transport, because Alexandra is going to be drugged during transport. Or at least… she's _supposed_ to be drugged._

_What. . .?!_ Lisa spun around when she felt something near her, but there was nothing there. Probably paranoia.

She hoped.

†

Jac's number flashed once on her caller ID before she answered it. "Good, I'm ready on this end too."

"Yes, Alexandra is standing by."

"Good." She flipped the phone shut and moved to the elevator. She pushed the call button, then she frowned and pushed the button again. There was no answering beep to announce that the elevator had been called.

_Oh shit._ Sabotage. They had been had. Her phone buzzed and she flipped it open without hesitation. "What? No the transport should be an armored truck, no escort. Damn it! Get out of there now! Someone found us out."

"No, I don't have a backup plan but we cannot miss this window, if she's transported I won't have access to her anymore and she'd be…"

"No, get out, I don't want you to get mixed up with this, I have a legitimate excuse for being here but you don't and if any suspicion lands on you it…"

Lisa closed her eyes and shot a prayer of thanks to whoever was listening that Jac didn't fight her on this. "Thank you, I'll do my best."

Lisa pocketed the phone and eyed the traitorous elevator button. She snapped a look around before attacking the cover and prying it off. Two wires twisted together and another push of the button brought a welcome _Beep!_ and the hum of a motor.

She leaped into the lift the moment the doors opened and pushed the button for the bottom floor. She glanced at the suitcase that held an extra lab coat and badge that would hopefully disguise Alexandra long enough for her to get out the front doors and into a taxi. The doors of the elevator opened with a soft whoosh and she leaped off with the same alacrity she had boarded with.

She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Alexandra pacing in the cage. She slapped the release button with more force than necessary and the door of the cell opened. She opened the suitcase and flung the contents at the other woman. "Change into that and follow me into the elevator. Hurry, the plan we had worked out has gone to pot and there's no saving it. We can only get you out before they come down to get you."

Lisa could practically see the other woman shoving her questions aside. In no time at all she had changed into the lab gear and was standing next to the elevator. Lisa hesitated mid-stride before swinging around and running over to the computer. What they needed was a distraction and she knew exactly what fit the bill.

She skirted a few firewalls and other nasties before working her way into the main security console.

She typed in some computer code that she thought could work, but the backup system overrode her commands. Faced with a blinking red 'Access Denied', she was at her wit's end. _I don't have time for this._

Then she cracked an evil grin. She remembered a few tricks that she had learned back in college when she had hacked into her art professor's computer to get the answers for the final exam, and she remembered one that might work.

She would turn the firewall back on itself. By editing out a single line, she could fool it into thinking that the security system was a virus, and like the snake that ate its own tail, it would collapse in on itself. Still grinning like a maniac she started her computer surgery.

_I'll release everything but the _really_ dangerous ones; they should cause enough havoc so we can slip out._

Alexandra was starting to fidget when she finished but the time spent would give them more than enough time to escape. "Alexandra, is there a way to keep your weight off the elevator? We don't need to announce our presence any more than we have if we can help it."

Alexandra shook her head vigorously. "Sorry, what? I spaced out."

"Can you keep your weight off the elevator?" Lisa repeated crossly.

"Yeah, that shouldn't be a problem. Just give me a second." Alexandra closed her eyes and seemed to focus inward. Lisa felt a prickling wave run over her skin. It reminded her of the time she had been caught outdoors by a thunderstorm. The sheer _power_ contained there was more than she could comprehend, let alone control.

When Alexandra opened her eyes they had turned a vibrant red and the eerily familiar slit pupil dominated the center. Alexandra cocked an eyebrow at Lisa's expression. "What? Do I have something on my face?"

Lisa chuckled and shook her head, feeling rather stupid for thinking that since the appearance had changed, the person had changed too. _Alex will always be Alex, no matter what._

When they stepped into the elevator she noticed that Alexandra's feet weren't actually on the ground, even if it looked like they were. "So, what is your ability, exactly?"

Alexandra gave her a 'who, me?' look. "Honestly, I'm not entirely sure. I know what I can and can't do but I've never tried to fit all of it into a singe category. Right now I'm… In essence I'm canceling out gravity's effect in my immediate area."

Lisa chuckled. "Wouldn't that be a handy thing to have on the doctor's scale."

Alexandra's reply was accompanied by a humorous grin. "When you're five pounds more than you thought, is it ever!"

When Lisa really looked at her companion she could tell that the comment about gravity wasn't entirely true. Alexandra may not have had weight but she wasn't controlling gravity. If she were, her lab coat and hair should be floating, and they weren't.

The elevator _ding-_ed. That was a mystery for another time.

When the doors opened, what she saw didn't make any sense. It looked like a scene straight out of a nightmare circus, but when her mind adjusted to what she was seeing, she realized that her attempt to release all the experimental subjects had been more successful than she thought. Lisa didn't need to caution Alexandra to act as though they were supposed to be there. Quickly they dashed toward the doors, using the commotion and general mayhem as a cover.

It wasn't a long walk per se, but it was enough of a run that both of them were panting by the time they reached the main foyer. When they made it outside they saw Jac and Matt waving at them from what looked like a motorbike, except it seemed to have something else attached to the side.

"Get in!" Matt pulled Alexandra onto the seat behind him and Jac lifted Lisa into the seat of the attachment before hopping in himself. He had barely gotten safely inside before Matt opened the throttle and they took off like bats out of hell.

†

Lisa may have ignored the quick glimpse she caught of him, goodness knows she had enough to think about, but he didn't miss the sight of her fleeing down the hall with that mysterious woman in tow. Adrian growled in frustration and punched his opponent a little harder than he meant to, sending it sprawling a few feet away, unconscious. He had almost known for sure that she was doing something with that woman but he hadn't had any substantial proof, and now he had all he needed.

As quickly as he could manage he made his way to the person who would be most pleased with the information he brought. In his eagerness he even got a little sloppy with his movements and began to push the boundaries of "humanly possible". Once Lisa's secret was exposed there was no way that she was coming back to the Institute unless she handed over that woman. He _would _find out her secrets if it cost him everything. He just _had_ to know.

†

Lisa's eyes were getting severely dried out by the speed they were going and it was starting to become annoying. "Hey, is ther…" Jac plunked a helmet over her head, answering her question. Her eyes flicked over to Alexandra, and she turned her head to see properly.

She had her face pressed tightly into Matt's back and it looked like she was crying, clutching her husband's waist for all that she was worth.

Jac followed her line of sight and looked back at her, finally understanding.

*****End Chapter 13*****

A/N: As I said before I don't know when I'll be able to really WRITE, so things are going to be a little slower than they have been before (knock on wood).


	14. To Destroy or to Run?

Dedicated to Tempest S, who revived my determination to keep writing with a review and reminding me that there is a serious point that still needs to come in.

†~†~†

Even though Alexandra was happily ensconced in her husband's arms there was no guarantee that she would stay there. The Institute was still searching for her, and would probably continue to until something else came up. Of course, Alexandra and Mat could keep running as long as they needed to, since their lifespans were mind-bogglingly long, something that Lisa had been surprised to learn. Apparently there was no record of any Methuselah dieing of old age in the memory of their race. That wasn't to say that they weren't killed by accidents, sickness, or even suicide, but they didn't die of old age.

Lisa took another sip of the divine tea that Mat had brewed. It really was a masterpiece as far as tea went.

Jac's question broke the silence. "What are we going to do now?"

"You don't have to worry about Alexandra and me," Mat said, "but somehow I don't think you were asking about us."

"I wasn't." At the sharpness in his tone Lisa put a warning hand on his wrist.

"Lisa—"

Alexandra broke in. "Jac has every right to be worried. What you have done is not something that will be easily forgiven. Even if the Institute stops chasing us it is highly unlikely that you will ever be able to work in any scientific field again."

When she heard those words her skin prickled sharply and her middle felt hollow. She had known the consequences of her actions, but understanding them and living them were two different things. Her job had been her life since she was a pre-teen trying to decide between general biology and genetics. It was… had been, a part of who she was.

"However, that does not mean that you don't have to have a future. We are quite accomplished at disappearing; it wouldn't be hard to do the same for you."

Her response was somewhat broken by the shock of the realizations that she had been unconsciously trying to avoid. "I assume that we… We would be starting over in another place, with new names and identities. Would we ever be allowed to contact any of our old friends or family?"

Mat looked her in the eye and said, "That would depend on the risk you are willing to take. The safest thing, of course, would be if you cut off all contact and pretended that you never were the people you are now. We," he waved his hand to indicate himself and his wife, "know exactly how hard that can be. Some contact doesn't pose a huge risk, but anything more than a few emails exchanged increases the chances of being found exponentially."

Lisa swallowed hard. "All right. I can accept that, but what about my family? I can't expect them to simply pull up their roots and come with me. My sons have lives and important people of their own; I can't expect them to simply leave all that behind because of one soft-hearted old woman."

Jac started to say something but decided against it, instead taking another gulp from his mug.

The silence in the small kitchen was palatable and grew moment by moment.

After a long moment Mat spoke. "We know someone who could fake identification for you, or, with enough luck and money, he could even fake your death. It wouldn't be easy but such things are common enough in our world."

"I-I would have to talk this over with Jac at least. Give me one day, please?"

"We can't wait that long, but we can afford an hour or two."

Lisa barely contained the desperate sob that tried to escape. She composed herself with several deep breaths; until she was sure she wouldn't burst into tears.

Mat nudged Alexandra's arm and they both quietly removed themselves from the room.

Once she was sure that she was calm enough, (at least externally) she said, "What do you think? It seems that there is a double edged sword hidden in this whole situation."

"What do you think? It's your life we're talking about."

"On one hand, I don't go into hiding. At best I am incarcerated for the rest of my life. At worst, I am secretly killed and forgotten; after they've gotten the information about Alexandra's whereabouts of course. Option two; I go into hiding, becoming a virtual hermit, avoiding familiar relationships at all costs. Three, I change my name, move away, but stay in contact through posts in a forum or something… possibly coded messages or something. Four, fake my death, and risk slipping up and exposing myself. Those are the four options I see."

"There is a fifth."

"What is that?"

"If we bring down the Institute—"

"NO! I will not put you in any more danger than you are already in, and besides, do have any idea how powerfu—"

"It wasn't just luck and good planning that brought us through this. I've seen how your people work, there was something else that kept them busy, and no matter how good of a scientist you are, there is no way you have enough influence to send all the security guards elsewhere while we made off with their prized test subject."

Lisa was silent, both awed by her husbands intelligence and attention to detail… and worried, because she knew that it would be every hard for her to dissuade him now.

†

She was desperate. She was beyond desperate, otherwise there was NO WAY that she would be giving even a moment's thought to this idiocy.

But she was. And she was thinking about it. _No. No. No way in hell, no._

_**But so tempting.**_

Gck.

†

"I cannot _believe_ I let you talk me into this." She hissed from the passenger's seat.

"But you did, and we're here. Hurry up or you'll be seen."

Lisa grumbled some more but heaved herself out of the car.

Once inside the internet café, one equipped with holograms, of course, she paid the guy at the register for one in a private room.

Once the door was safely locked, Lisa switched on the interference-generator that she had picked up on the way to jam any signals from bugs. It couldn't knock out the security camera or anything connected with wires, but hopefully it would be enough.

She dialed Jacob and prayed that he would pick up.

He did, and after a minimal pause the static cleared and she was looking, once again, at his strangely beguiling face.

"Hello, long time no see. How's life?"

Somehow he managed to change his expression from polite to dead bored without twitching an eyelash. "What do you want? You wouldn't have contacted me unless there was something that you needed and you were either not resourceful enough, in which case I will ignore you, or you need something that only I can provide, in which case I might listen."

_Who put hot sauce on his washcloth this morning? Yeesh. _"I need to bring down the Institute."

Jacob's eyes widened slightly at that. "And why should I help you? They have been my backers for as long as I have been in this position and before."

"Was I mistaken then, when I saw the glee in your eyes those weeks ago when we finalized our plans to release Alexandra? You _wanted_ to cause chaos in the Institute; you wanted to upset the structure as much as you could, and I will be _very _surprised if you don't want to cause further upset now.

"I don't really give a damn about your reasons, but I have my own for wanting that place in havoc. So, will you consider it?"

Jacob had definitely been having a bad day, because his expression changed into a devious smirk. "What do you have in mind?"

_**Deal with the Devil… **_Lisa pushed aside the whispers of her subconscious. "Make sure that they are in too much chaos to chase after me or Alexandra for as long as it takes for us to disappear. And changing the consistency of the building from stone to gravel doesn't sound too bad either."

Jacob stood silently for several minutes before replying. "Under the condition that you tell me everything that you know about Alexandra, I will give you my help."

Lisa was surprised. She had learned nothing new about her friend, but she wasn't going to tell him that. "Agreed."

"Since we have settled on our bargain, what is your plan of attack?"

*****End Chapter 14*****

Thank you again, Tempest, for your review and I hope you decide to keep reading despite my atrocious updating habits.

I am still agonizing over the story here since it seems that both my serious writer's blocks seem to have crumbled at the same time, which is a blessing wrapped in a curse since I keep mixing them up and writing _this_ over _there _and vice versa. *facepalms* Oh well.

Sorry about the short chapter, I wanted to let you guys know I am still alive, also, I apologize for the cliffie, a little. Very little. (I'm ebil, what can I say?)


	15. The Frailty of Courage

A slightly longer chapter for you patient people who read my stuff after…three months… -hides in shame-

It turns out that the Massive Plot that I am in the process of taming is a bit bigger than originally thought. Think elephant becoming brontosaurus. Ahh well, more chapters… yippee.

†~†~†

Lisa had often heard it said that she would rather fight a virus with a chicken soup than advanced technology and it was entirely true. This joke went right over outsider's heads, but it was more than slightly insulting, that she would rather stick with traditional methods that weren't as effective, than use the cutting edge tech that she _helped develop_.

_Someone_ usually cracked some variation around the beginning of cold season and it never failed to get on her nerves, more than a little because she had never thought of a properly witty reply to snap back and had to confine her responses to glares.

She childishly and vindictively addressed the absent joker. _I'm going to take you out with one of the oldest tricks in the book, take THAT, new-fangled doodad-lovers._

†~†~†

Lisa's heart was pounding as she left the internet café; partly in excitement, partly in fear and dread.

On unsteady legs she walked a block to the car and got in. She remained quiet as Jac started driving and robotically began to remove the stage makeup that had acted as her disguise while she was in the café.

The smooth, almost-silent hum of the engine served as white noise that helped her calm down somewhat. Jac hadn't said a word since they left Mat and Alexandra's house and she was grateful for it. She desperately needed to come to terms with what she was doing and talking to an outsider would only prolong the agony.

_I am betraying everything I have worked for for the last twenty years because of a woman I met not even a year ago. Someone put me in a straight jacket, I must be insane. I am also working to bring down an organization that has entirely too much power and has lost view of the principles that it was founded on…_Lisa slowly collapsed into her seat, helpless._ I don't know. I don't know. I just don't know…anything._

I don't know.

†~†~†

Jacob considered the woman's request. On one hand, it would be advantageous to bring down the Institute, they knew more than they should about matters that he wanted to remain hidden and they were becoming too uppity for him to ignore. On the other, they were a highly useful tool that had sought him both personal and professional knowledge for many years and were not likely to forget the things they owed him.

_Even tools wear out and lose their usefulness, and a worn-out tool can be dangerous to use._

†~†~†

Lisa stayed silent for the entire ride back, lost in her own thoughts; thankfully Jac stayed silent as well, she felt as though she would break if she had to talk to anyone.

Even though she knew what she was doing was right by almost anyone's standards…it didn't mean that she was giving up anything less than the thing that she had put her entire life towards, and she regretted it.

More than anything, she had her regrets; anyone in her position would, she was sure of that, but she wouldn't change anything for anything. Lisa didn't like the position she was in, but she wouldn't be able to look at herself in the mirror now if she had done anything else.

But… But.

†~†~†

Alexandra didn't look the look of Lisa when she walked in the door; Lisa refused to look her in the eye and immediately went into the room of the house that was her and Jac's bedroom and locked the door.

She wanted to run after Lisa and _make_ her tell her what was wrong, but the look on her friend's face was not the look of someone whose problems could be solved with her help.

She steeled herself to Lisa's pain and went to make some tea.

†~†~†

Come to terms… That was what she needed to do.

What a strange phrase. 'Come to terms with things.' It almost sounded as if there were a treaty that needed to be signed.

She could feel her moroseness receding, enough for her to get up from the bed and unlock the door. A quick look out of the window told her that she had sat in her puddle of self-pity far longer than she had intended.

Opening the door, she walked down the hall and paused at the kitchen door, trying to eavesdrop.

"Listen, even though it's chancy, they won't be expecting it. If there is some way to get inside and unnoticed before—Lisa, you really shouldn't be eavesdropping when people need your input."

Lisa slid around the doorframe like a guilty child. "Would that be another benefit of being a Methuselah?"

"You bet. Have a seat."

Lisa sat. "So, where are we getting who into?"

"Alex thinks that she should march up to that prison and announce herself to the wardens so they can put her back in." Mat said testily. "Seriously Alex, do you think I'm going to let you go after seeing what happened to you the _last_ time I let you out of my sight?

"I never said anything about letting them capture me. All I want to do is provide a distraction so Lisa's friend can do some damage. Once they see me I doubt that they'll be thinking about much except capturing me, especially not someone trying to hack into their servers and deleting information."

Lisa looked at Alexandra as though she had never seen her before. Playing decoy was risky under normal circumstances, let alone when the people coming after you had stun rays and tranquilizers that could put down a blue whale.

"Alexandra… I really don't think that this is a good idea. You have no idea what those people are capable of and what kind of technology that they have. Take it from me, they could take you out and capture you easily, I _helped design_ several things in there that would certainly _not_ meet public approval and there is no way that anything could stand up to the arsenal that they have, including Methuselah."

Alexandra fixed her with a piercing look. "You're assuming that you know everything I can do."

"What else can you do then?"

"This, for one."

Alex disappeared and Lisa felt pressure on top of her head. She looked up to see a grinning Alexandra using her head as an armrest. "Teleport?"

"Moving fast." She smirked.

Jac was looking rather pale. "Lisa, can I talk to you outside for a minute?"

†~†~†

Once they were outside and a good distance down the path Lisa spoke. "Jac…" Her tone was placating, even pleading, but he would have none of it.

"LISTEN to me for a minute, would you! I _don't care_ that you feel obligated! By following them you are putting yourself in God-only-knows how much danger and I refuse to help creatures who _prey_ on humans. Don't you have any sense of self preservation?" Softening his voice, he said, "Just come home and we can work this out, please."

Lisa wanted to shrivel up as she listened to her husband. _I know, I understand, but _you_ don't understand _my _choices. You can't see beyond your protectiveness and prejudices. And I don't know _how_ to make you understand. I'm sorry. _As much as she wanted to curl up into a ball and wither away, she knew she couldn't afford to.

_Not just yet, anyway. _

If she had learned anything as a mother, it was that there were times that the only solution was to suck it up and deal, no matter how crappy things were, and she clung to that bit of steel. It was the only thing keeping her sane at the moment.

When Jac finished, she took a shaky breath and tried to explain. "Jac, do you honestly think that I can escape the Institute's notice without their help? If you don't want to come…I would prefer that you didn't come, actually, since it's going to get exponentially dangerous and you really had nothing to do with it. But there's a price on my head, so to speak, and I threw my lot in with Alex's when I decided to break her out and I'm grateful that she's willing to help me in turn. They have probably disappeared several times before and there is no way that I can afford to be choosy about whose help I receive, especially experienced help…" Lisa trailed off, not sure of what else to say.

One half of her heart was demanding that she get rid of the other, and it was tearing her apart. She left Jac to think about what she had said and made her way back to the house._ If I hated him, if we were separated, this would be so much easier for both of us._

She stopped before she got to the porch and instead followed the foundation around the house to the back yard where she saw a vegetable garden in the fading light. She wandered among the tomatoes and nearly lost a patch of skin when she avoided stepping on the zucchini. Picking herself up, she felt the dam burst and tears cascaded down her cheeks.

_Why does it…why can't everything…whywhywhywhy!_

She punched and clawed the dirt under her until she exhausted her violent frustration. She lay in child's pose, kneeling with her forehead on the ground, until the mosquitoes began to arrive in force. She brushed herself off and felt her way across the darkened landscape to the back door. She carefully padded through the dim hallway to the bathroom, not wanting anyone's pity.

She washed her hands and found that she had bloodied a knuckle and torn three nails past the quick. Wincing at the sting of cold water on the cuts, she quickly finished cleaning her skin. Her slacks were beyond saving.

Her temper tantrum in the garden had not done much to relieve the pressure that was still building behind her breastbone. The most it had accomplished was tilling the soil. She could feel her shoulders tensing and forced herself to relax. She had physically exhausted her frustration with Jac, but that had done nothing to relieve the deeper pressure.

She stared at her reflection in the mirror, noting that the dark circles under her eyes were now dark enough that it looked like she had two black eyes. She tried to bring some emotion into her expression but her face stayed frozen in its mask. She slapped off the light and made her way back to her room, avoiding the lit doorway that led to the living room and kitchen.

As she pulled back the covers on her bed she decided that she would rather sleep alone. Grabbing a pillow and spare comforter off the foot of the bed, she opened the door to the room next to hers and Jac's and pulled back the sheets on the twin bed. She needed time alone to think, she needed to understand within herself why she was doing this and having anyone present would prevent her from being objective. She didn't understand her own feelings or why they were so strong; she had never felt like this before, felt so strongly about something.

It scared her.

She depended on control of herself. It was the only thing she had any true control over. She was losing and she didn't know what that meant or how to not lose. Everything was spiraling out of control and nothing was remaining in place long enough for her to grasp it to gain some kind of clue or stability.

Her best friend was keeping secrets.

Her husband was trying to protect her by putting himself in danger.

The company she worked for had a price on her head.

The one person who might be able to get her out of the hole she had dug had an interest in Alex that went beyond personal or scientific boundaries and she had no intention of handing Alex over without a fight.

She was trying to bring down the most powerful company on the planet with nothing but a little bit of computer knowledge and a friend.

And she was swept up in a whirlwind of emotion that forced choices on her that she never asked for and didn't want, in addition to keeping up appearances so Alex wouldn't worry. Because she couldn't let herself collapse just yet.

Sometimes, being a mom sucked.

Tearful laughter at the last thought. _Yes, it can. And right now it sucks royally._

God, how she wanted to break.

†~†~†

The next morning, Lisa changed into the clothes that Alex had lent her and padded down the hall, the faux wood floor chilling her feet and emotional mask firmly back in place.

The blue-eyed woman standing at the stove waved toward the table, so she took the seat closest to her, which happened to be the seat closest to the counter that Alex was working on. A steaming mug appeared in front of her.

"What would you like for breakfast? Since things got crazy I realize we have hardly been feeding you properly and it's high time we started. Belated celebration breakfast, if you will. What will you have?"

"French toast."

Alex looked like she was about to say something but decided not to, instead she flickered around the kitchen, gathering ingredients. Literally flickered. She moved so fast that even sitting still and concentrating Lisa could barely see her between stops.

"Alex? There's something I need to talk to you about."

Alex stopped and set the cinnamon next to the bread and beaten eggs. "This has to do with the conversation you had with Jac last night, doesn't it?"

Lisa nodded and rested her head on her folded hands, unconsciously hiding her face. "Could you tone it down when Jac is around? He's not used to working around the unknown and I think that your and Mat's…physical advantages…are making him nervous. I don't think he likes being reminded that you could pick him up like a baby and play catch with him if the whim struck you."

The image of playing catch with a grown man was so funny that Alex had to laugh, but she sobered up when Lisa's request sunk in. "I'll try, and I'll talk to Mat. I suppose I haven't been exactly subtle, neither of us has. I'll keep those things to a minimum. Sorry…"

Lisa could almost see the other woman's wings drooping. _Wait…wings?_ She shook her head, dismissing her active imagination, but she still got up and stepped closer to the Methuselah and wrapped her in a loose hug. "I don't mind. You don't have to have masks with me, okay?"

Alex laughed quietly. "How do you always know what to say?"

"Mom Telepathy. A necessity with moody teens." A smile snuck onto her face as well.

Alex stepped out of her embrace and took her by the shoulders. "Something has been eating you since last night."

Lisa froze and said stiffly, "That…has nothing to do with you."

Alexandra didn't respond except to tighten her hold on her shoulders.

She felt her breathing accelerating as she struggled not to break down weeping, unwilling to lose face in front of her best friend, but she came completely undone when she was gathered up in cool arms and Alex whispered, "Let me take some of the burden. Please."

She ended up telling her everything, from the first doubt that she had about the Institute to the fact that her husband and the love of her life couldn't or wouldn't understand why she insisted on continuing to follow what she felt was right.

The Methuselah listened patiently as she bled out her doubts and all the poison they contained, occasionally offering a comment to keep her talking

When her tears and words ran dry, Alex cupped her cheek and brought her eyes up to look into hers. "You shouldn't take everything on yourself. Even mothers need to depend on someone sometimes, let me share the burden that you are carrying in my place. You shouldn't think that just because you participated that everything afterward is your cross to bear alone. I have equal responsibility for what has happened. If I hadn't been caught in that building collapse we wouldn't even be in this mess. So please stop acting like you're the only one who isn't allowed a shoulder to cry on. Okay?"

Lisa took a shaky breath and nodded once.

"Good. I have an excellent recipe for french toast that will have you singing its praises for years, and I'll even let you watch. Slice the bread for me, would you?"

*****End Chapter 15*** **

Ugh, I hate writing fights…I always feel like I'm walking in on something that I have no business with.

In a review last chapter someone asked about when Abel and Lilith would come in. I'm so sorry for having so much backstory, but Lisa kept springing plot twists on me and refused to tell me what happened next until I wrote enough for her. =_=;;; (being bossed around by your characters, _so_ not cool)

Also, in this story they are very much siblings so it's not AbelxLilith, it's Abel with Lilith (and Cain and Seth but there's only 2 slots). Just in case you wanted to know.


	16. That Which Mortals Fear

I shamelessly pilfered a few ideas from the anime and manga in this chapter, though the twists are mine. See if you can spot them. ^_^

†~†~†

That afternoon they all gathered in the living room to watch the news after Lisa heard something interesting on one of the morning radio shows.

"We interrupt our scheduled programming to bring you breaking news on the mayhem and destruction wrought not two days ago by an unknown cause at the Institute of Science."

"Welcome to the special broadcast on the events that happened at the Institute of Science two days ago." Said the smiling announcer. "We bring you breaking news on the chaos that used to be the Institute of Science. For the past two days, no one has been allowed in or out, and the blocks surrounding the Institute have been blockaded and a no-fly zone established. No one knows why except the people who were there at the time, but until now, none came forward to testify as to the events inside. Now we will go over to Andre."

"Hello everyone. As you can see, I am standing outside of the blockade that is the closest anyone without proper ID can get to the Institute and with me is Doctor Adrian Machovitch who works at the Institute as a biochemist. Thank you for joining me, Dr. Machovitch. Can you say what happened inside? What caused the apparent destruction?"

Adrian laughed, "Destruction is a rather extreme word for a bit of superficial damage. The rumors are overblown as ever, I can assure you. I even obtained permission to have a small robot with a camera show you around the building in real time, no alteration. You can see for yourself the 'massive destruction.'" He said, making air quotes.

The picture shifted to what was presumably the camera bot, showing dented and gouged walls and papers strewn everywhere. The occasional brown splotch of blood spotted the white floor like mud in a pristine kitchen.

"As you can see, most damage was done to the surface of the walls and some minor damage dealt to the floor tiles. The reason we have blocked off the surrounding area is to keep curious people out of the building while it is undergoing repairs, which should be finished tomorrow. It would be awkward if someone slipped on a drying patch of plaster and broke a leg, and as for the no-fly zone, that is just a safety precaution to make sure that some of the highly sensitive information stays where it belongs. After all, the last thing we want is for someone less than responsible to start some kind of misguided effort based on whatever misinformation is floating around these days."

_Reasonable as ever, Adrian. You always did have a silver tongue.  
_

"What caused the damage?"

"Ahh, well, you see…" Adrian blushed. "One of our employees typed in the wrong command and let some of the research chimeras out of their cages. No one was seriously injured, but as you can see…"

_His acting ability has improved exponentially since college._

The camera panned back and forth again to drive the point home. _Of course, they're being pretty selective with what they show. There may not be any editing but you can be assured that they're hiding something behind the camera or off to the side._

The news clip wrapped up with a reassurance that there would be no "lasting harm" to either the Institute or the personnel, and someone turned it off when the topic switched to the sports scores.

Mat was the first to break the silence. "Well that was informative."

"Do you think that they are ever going to make you a public enemy Lis?" Jac sounded worried from his perch in the armchair.

Lisa smiled at her nickname. "Probably not. It would damage their image too much. If they're going to come after me, they're going to do it with more subtlety than a screaming mob, which is the widespread opinion of the public at the Institute." She looked at the floor and grinned to herself, her expression hidden from the others because she was sitting with her elbows on her knees.

Mat raised an eyebrow. "Is that so?"

She made a show of leaning back and put her hands behind her head in an expression of careless disregard. "The elite working on questionable material that would bring the wrath of humankind on them when that material is entirely justified in their minds because of its very existence? Of course we had enormous egos. We all have a bit of a god complex too, I think. But the biggest difference is the fact that most of us are the most ambitious and ruthless of our generation, morals are really a secondary concern, when they are a concern at all—" She broke off when she felt Alexandra's shiver through the couch. "No, I don't think that they're ever going to announce the truth of what happened. There is the chance of people asking the reason I went crazy in the first place, and with my record that would be a hard one to explain."

"So we have to watch for pizza boys with odd smells rather than security cameras at the grocery store?"

"Something like that."

They sat in silence for a while.

Alex suddenly levered herself out of the chair and went into the kitchen. Lisa heard her take the kettle off the stove and fill it, then put it on the stove. "So…" She said, startling everyone in the living room. "What are we going to do? If we don't move soon, the Institute will track us down or we'll run out of food, and _I_ have no intention of fighting on an empty stomach." She stood in the doorway and the kitchen light shone out from behind her, giving a melodramatic air to the whole scene.

It was almost enough to make Lisa burst out laughing.

†~†~†

"Cause evacuation, draw them away, do damage and get out, simple really."

"'No plan survives contact with the enemy.'"

"No enemy was ever beaten without a plan."

"Really now, you two, can't you just—"

Both simultaneously: "Quiet!"

She was quiet.

†~†~†

Two days after the newscast, only four days after Alexandra had left the Institute, they were going back.

If she thought that she would never surpass the level of nervousness she had felt when she broke Alex out, she was wrong.

"Pass me a bag, would you?" She groaned. No sooner than a bucket was set on her lap then she felt her stomach contract and promptly made use of it.

The window next to her rolled down and she gratefully stuck her head out of it, nausea passing a little. _I am so glad I didn't have any orange juice this morning._

Jac handed her a bottle of water and she cleaned the taste from her mouth, spitting into the bucket, which she set on the floor.

"Pull over and let's get rid of that. We don't need to be stepping in it on our way out."

Mat, who was driving, gave them both an odd look before obligingly pulling into a refuel station.

Lisa tossed the befouled bucket into a garbage can and they were off again.

†~†~†

"I can't decide if I'm glad you people work so fast or not." Mat grated as they pulled up at one of the lesser public entrances. Alexandra and Lisa got out.

"I'll be watching so if anything goes wrong I'll be less than a mile away." Mat said. Lisa could see the pain allowing Alex back into the Institute was eating at his resolution to let her go. It was almost one o'clock, an hour before Jacob's scheduled appearance and Lisa wasn't any more eager than he was to see this through, but times were desperate and she _needed_ to erase Alexandra's data before anyone else saw it.

Alex and Mat both cocked their heads as though listening to something and a minute later Lisa heard it as well. The _thubba thubba_ of a flying engine approaching. She squinted at the black speck coming from the same direction they had and looked over at Alex.

The other woman swallowed and said, "Let's get this show on the road."

They both pulled on the white lab coats and checked that their forged ID cards—courtesy of Jacob—were in place.

Lisa glanced up once more at the helicopter approaching before striding through the door. Back to Hell.

The halls they walked through were nearly deserted and they quickly made their way through the maze, Lisa unconsciously taking the most direct route. They made it to the computer console without incident and as Alex stood guard Lisa quickly input the password Jacob had given her, hoping that he wasn't double-crossing them by giving them a fake. Seconds later she was admitted and quickly navigated to the hard drive on the network that contained Alexandra's data. She looked up the location in the building and was relieved to see that is was only a few rooms away.

She logged out of the computer and turned around, but she stopped. Some _thing_ was sniffing at Alexandra, who stood perfectly still. Vaguely canine in shape, but with more powerful looking limbs and rounded ears, it was chocolate brown and had a ridge of spines running down its back and spikes on its elbows and heels as well.

Keeping her voice perfectly calm and soothing, she said, "Alex, when did that get here?"

Just as calmly and soothingly she replied, "Just now."

Lisa did her best to keep her movements slow predictable and obvious. Moving closer to the door, and the animal, she pulled a syringe filled with fast acting sedative out of her pocket.

Suddenly its head snapped around and it let out a bone-chilling growl.

Lisa averted her eyes and dropped the syringe.

It continued to stare at her.

"Alex…"

"Lisa, look it in the eyes, right now it thinks you are hiding something."

Hesitantly, Lisa obeyed and slowly raised her eyes to meet the creature's emerald ones. It stared at her for long moments, then it dropped its eyes and its tail gave the smallest wag.

On an impulse, Lisa held out her hand, palm down, for it to sniff and it cautiously obliged.

"There you go…you see, it's okay…" Alex cooed. She also reached into her pocket and brought out a granola bar.

The…dog's…hackles went up momentarily but when Alex unwrapped the snack it turned into an oversized (and spiky) puppy, complete with a heartbreaking whine.

Alex fed the creature half of the granola bar and handed Lisa the other half. "Feed her, she'll trust you more if you do."

Lisa obeyed, not feeling as though she had much choice in the matter. It looked up at her again, and then looked down, hanging its head.

"See, she's sorry." Alex softly snapped her fingers and the dog creature turned around to face her again. She crouched so her face was level with the creature's and slowly reached her hand up to the dog's head, giving it a rub behind the ears which it seemed to enjoy enormously.

"Where did you say that we needed to go next?"

Lisa didn't look away from the creature, which was now begging pats from Alex, as she spoke. "Two doors down on the other side of the hall."

Carefully, she edged past the animal and sidled down the hall to the door. Inside she found the server stored all the research data. Opening the case took only a moment and she quickly located the disk that had Alexandra's files on it. Disconnecting it, she went to the other end of the room and pulled a powerful magnet out of Alex's pocket. She spent a few seconds rubbing the disk with it and left the magnet with Alex when she plugged the hard drive back in.

"There. That was the last of the backup data. You are a free woman."

Alexandra's smile could have lit the entire building. "Let's get out of here before they realize that there's a loophole in the security system."

She and Alex trotted down the hallway, and a click-click-clicking sound made her look around. The dog creature was bringing up the rear. Lisa shrugged. They would deal with it later.

†~†~†

"Shit!"

Lisa backpedaled frantically when she saw the slavering menace. Peeking around the corner, she whispered to Alex, "I don't suppose you can pull out another granola bar and make it beg for a belly scratch?"

Alex shook her head. "No can do. Are we even looking at the same thing? The only thing that's going to make that one roll over is a high-powered rifle bullet through the head."

"Great. I never would have guessed that something that big would still be wandering around."

"I'm surprised as well. I never would've guessed that so many things would still be wandering around."

"It's a stupid oversight on our part, the idea to put radio tracking on the experiments was shot down because we thought that none of them would ever need to be tracked down, and in the likelihood that one did escape, it would be easy to find because—"

"Shh!"

Lisa fell silent for a few moments and listened for any sign that it had noticed them.

"Is there anything that you can pull out of the hat?"

"Sadly not, anything that I could do would draw security personnel like flies."

"Damn." A syringe made a terrible long-range weapon.

"Is there any other route?"

"Yes and no," Lisa sighed, "the only other option is extremely public and leads through the front door. If I get my face caught by a camera we're toast."

"Facial recognition software?"

"Yup."

It was Alexandra's turn to sigh. "We could try waiting until it moves." The dog nosed at her hand and she absently scratched its cheek.

"No good, we can't afford the time to play Who Can Sit Still Longer. Both our husbands would go crazy if we ended up being hours late."

Alex suddenly clapped her hand over Lisa's mouth. _Shit. Oh shitshitshit._ She barely dared to breathe as she strained her ears for any sign of what prompted Alex's action.

Lips tickled her ear and she heard/felt Alex say, "No choice. Have to go front."

She stiffened, but nodded. Alex turned away from her and crouched. _Get on, _her motions said. Lisa hesitated for a moment, but then complied. Alex stood without any difficulty, as though Lisa weighed no more than a five year old. She felt her take a deep breath before her own slammed back into her lungs. Walls and hallways blurred past and it felt like her stomach and brain were still a mile behind.

Just as suddenly as she had launched, Alex slowed to jogging speed and turned a corner, then stopped. Lisa suddenly got the feeling that Alex would have gone faster if her passenger could have withstood the G-force. _Gulp._

Lisa started violently when she felt something touch her butt, almost knocking both of them to the floor. She looked down over her arm and saw something brown and furry. _What the…?_

Alex dropped something that went_ clickclick. Clickclick-clickclick. _She heard it move behind her and got goosed. _Oh, the dog. _She sighed. Its tail was probably what scared her witless the first time.

"Um, Alex, I can walk, you know."

"Oh, uh, sorry."

She gratefully touched down and straightened her shirt. "We needed to turn left at that corner, not right, so let's go."

†~†~†

Lisa stopped at a bathroom and pulled Alex with her. "Guaranteed to have no cameras." She explained. The three of them—_guess the dog is part of the group now—_sat on the floor.

"This is going to get rough. Since we're going out the front there is almost a guarantee that there will be a fight and I'd rather you believe that it is inevitable rather than hoping to slip by unnoticed. Being mentally unprepared would probably be the clincher for our loss, and I'd really rather not get caught." She paused to organize her thoughts. "So, once we hit the reception desk, run for all you're worth. It will only take a few seconds for the alarm to go up and less than a minute for lockdown. I'm pretty sure that you could bust through the shutters but I think they would slow even a Methuselah down and I don't know if we can afford even those few seconds."

"Is there any way you could jam them?"

"Not if we want to escape. The only way I can think of involves going down three floors and setting off a million alarms in the process. The way this place works they've probably installed cameras farther from the main hall…which gives us even less time than normal."

They all jumped when Lisa's pocket buzzed. "Hello? Oh, hello Jacob. You called just in time to answer a question. Do you know if there are any new cameras and where they are?"

He did know and said as much and that the offices were now under surveillance but that was all.

"We're going to be getting out as soon as we can, we completed our objective but escaping as planned isn't going to happen. One of the escaped experiments was in the way and there was no way to take care of it without drawing attention. I'm heading toward the main entrance now. Can you manage a distraction? I'm camped out in a bathroom about one and a half sectors from the reception desk. I can wait as long as needed."

That was fine but would she mind doing another errand as compensation?

"That's fine."

Sticking the USB drive in her pocket into the nearest port would be sufficient.

"Alright, that shouldn't take long." There was another console not too far away, only a few doors back the way they had come.

Less than two minutes later they were all gathered in the bathroom again.

"How do we know when to move?"

"Jacob said he'll call us five minutes before they arrive and again at one minute."

Alex nodded approvingly. "Very thorough."

†~†~†

It had been close to fifteen minutes before Jacob's first call came. He asked them to move closer to the main hall and to wait there.

"Fine. See you in a bit."

"So, what do you think he'll do? Sleeping gas? Storm the building?"

Lisa groaned as her knees loudly voted to stay seated. "I wish I knew, but probably nothing that would incapacitate us, using a gas is too general and there is a notable lack of gasmasks in our pockets. My guess is he'll disable the cameras or something. Heck, that USB we plugged in could be a virus to shut down the facial recognition software. He seems like the type to favor elegance over force. I don't think he'll do something like storm the building, but you never know."

"True."

They walked in silence until they reached another bathroom. Alex was about to enter when Lisa caught her elbow, "These bathrooms aren't nearly as deserted, we'd have to be very lucky if someone didn't walk in there…" Her voice trailed off as she thought of something. "Alex, if someone comes down the hall pretend you're helping me walk."

"Eeh?"

"If someone who knows me sees my face we're screwed. Pretend I sprained my ankle or something."

"Ah. Okay."

A few doors down Lisa found what she wanted and shoved Alexandra inside, followed and closed the door behind them both. She blinked in the darkness and felt behind her for the light switch. Wincing at the glare, she shielded her eyes, letting them adjust.

"May I ask why you shoved me into a broom closet?"

Lisa took in Alex's slightly annoyed look from less than two feet away. "Because, again, they don't put cameras in 'broom closets' and no one is going to come in here." A slightly wicked grin tugged at her mouth. "And even if they did they would probably jump to other conclusions involving a very bad pun…"

"Ack! Lisa! Seriously, get your head out of the gutter or I'll think you're serious."

Lisa snickered. "Anything to lighten the mood."

Alex rolled her eyes.

The dog wiggled between them and started nudging at their hands with its nose. She absently scratched it under the chin with a finger.

"Hey Alex, how did you know how to tame it back there anyway?"

"Hm? Oh, the dog? I guess it's because I've had a lot of dogs over the years, after training so many you can't help but pick up the art of it somewhat. And maybe I sympathize with her a bit, so I had a good idea of her mood at the time."

Suddenly it—no, she—arched her back and Lisa jerked back to avoid getting skewered.

_Vrrrr vrrrr vr— _"Hello?"

"Where are you in the building?" Jacob's voice played over the sounds of the street.

"Sector A, Block 2. Is that close enough?"

"Wonderful. If you could start out in…oh, thirty seconds or so we should be ready. When you hit A1 start running, that's where the cameras start."

"Roger that." Lisa replied and hung up. "We move in thirty seconds, run when we get to A1."

"Right." Alex started counting silently.

Lisa resisted the desire to start panting and kept her breathing and heart rate somewhat steady. _I'm going to have to ask Jacob how he knows what we need to know before we even do._

She opened the door when Alex nodded and, stomach roiling, began walking quickly down the corridor, the other two trailing behind

Strangely, her thoughts were calm and almost mathematical in their logic, despite her shivering body.

They hadn't walked far when she realized they were close. "Alex, Pooch, stay close to me and try not to get lost; the layout gets a bit crazy."

She started to run.

This block's design was meant to slow down anyone who didn't belong here for their own safety, with many dead ends and circular traps, there was no direct route; if Alexandra carried her and ran she knew that they would be thoroughly lost within seconds, she had to lead. Of course, Alex and the dog were keeping up easily and Lisa had never been so glad that she participated in the 12k race every year. She wasn't terribly fast but she could run 5k without getting tired.

_Left, straight here, two rights, another left, straight for a while…only a little more._

"Do you want me to carry you once we clear this corn maze?"

_What's a corn maze? _"Don't think…have time…besides…just end up…a shield…no…thanks."

Alex's grunt sounded more like a 'I was telling you, not asking' grunt than a 'fine, whatever' one.

Lisa saw the lights starting to flicker and shouted, "Alex! Lights out!"

"Fine!" Was the reply.

She felt more than saw Alex's form slip in front of her and just before darkness washed over them hands grabbed behind her knees and hiked her up piggyback again.

"I can still see, so if you can tell me where to go I can get us out of here."

"Keep going straight for about a hundred feet, then take your first left and second right, that should put us where we need to be."

"Roger. I'm going to run."

Lisa only had time to inhale before she felt her stomach getting extremely friendly with her spine. They slowed around the corners, but not much, Lisa could feel the muscles in her neck straining to keep her head from flying off. She did her best to keep her arms locked at Alex's chest instead of slipping up around her neck.

_You're such a softie, Alex. _ She could feel the dog's fur against her ankle.

It took less than half a minute to reach the waiting room, and Lisa's eyes stung and watered as they adjusted to the sunlight coming through the skylight.

"Let me down, they won't waste any ti—"

Her teeth clicked together as Alex dodged backwards and a piece of the floor _pinged_ off a table. "They sure didn't."

Lisa grunted as Alex moved again, faster than before.

†~†~†

_I can't use my wings at all with Lisa on my back, and I can't ask her to get off with me dodging every which wa—bastards, would you stop aiming at the one person here who _can't_ take a bullet? Shit! If only I could use my wings as a shield I could move freely, but since I'm carrying buster here I can't rearrange her…urgh!_

'Buster' started squirming so much that Alex had to drop her.

Lisa's mouth was right next to her ear. "It's an auto-targeting defense system. Find where the bullets are coming from and throw a chair at it."

"Right." She grabbed one of the metal tables and heaved it as hard as she dared at the top of the door frame. There was a very satisfying crunch and the deadly game of dodge ball stopped.

"Well, this is some nice pre-lunch exercise." She quipped. "Which way to the next activity?"

Predictably, the joke flopped, but the finger pointing through the doorway answered her question.

"Any idea what's next?"

"Either robots or security guys, I'm personally hoping for humans."

"Okay." Alex set off. "And after that?"

"Innocent bystanders maybe? We'll be in the public area and I can't imagine them trying anything there unless they've gone totally batty."

Alex didn't dignify that with a reply. Anyone who used auto-targeting weaponry as a security measure in a _waiting room _was already nuts.

†~†~†

The appointment office was suspiciously quiet; you could even hear the air exchange running. Alex suspiciously tossed a pen into the middle of the room but…

Nothing.

"Do you think that there's nothing here, somehow?"

"I don't know. I don't think that there is though. Any defense system would have activated long ago. I can't remember anything that takes a long time."

"Hold your breath to be safe."

Alex had them across the room and through the door in less than a second. They exited into a very large and airy room with plants seemingly suspended in midair and a stunning kinetic sculpture of iridescent glass occupying the enormous skylight.

This was secondary information though. All around them raged chaos. People in street clothes were fighting with figures in white and even as they watched, the lab coat-clad figures were being pushed back.

"What…?"

She didn't know which of them spoke but their confusion was mutual. Lisa couldn't wrap her head around what she was seeing.

Alex relaxed her hold enough that Lisa could slip free. "Come on, we don't have much time." She slipped her hand into Lisa's and towed her along.

Lisa broke out of her reverie when a body went _flying_ past her shoulder. She snapped around to see the cause but the mass of bodies showed no clues. A split second later she was yanked around to Alex's front. "Come out you coward and face me!"

Was it her imagination or did Alexandra's voice have a rough edge to it?

When no one appeared Alex continued to shoulder her way through the melee. They were half way to the doors now and the shutters still hadn't come down.

Suddenly the crowd began parting around them and they sped up their pace until they were nearly jogging. They were two thirds of the way across now.

"Well well, Lisa, I didn't expect to see _you_ here."

That voice, bone chillingly familiar, the voice she had last heard so many months ago, flirting and threatening, stopped Lisa dead.

"Adrian." Lisa hated to sound melodramatic, but she wanted Alex to know who challenged them.

Behind her Alexandra shifted her stance so she could counter an attack from any direction.

"It looks like you've adopted your lab rat at well…such a poor scientist if you can't stomach a few yelps of pain from a _dog_."

Slowly, a space had opened in the struggling bodies, less than ten feet across, it was enough for Lisa to make out Adrian's form, bereft of his usual lab coat, standing at the edge of the circle.

The newly exposed Adrian sauntered forward. "Aaah, it would seem that the lab rat is actually a ferret. It has teeth."

"We can't afford the time to fight him."

Lisa could feel the agitation radiating from Alexandra's body. "We can't afford to ignore him. He has the equivalent of a black belt in at least three martial arts. He could take us down in no time at all."

"Ugh."

Adrian—there was no other word for it—blurred.

Lisa felt Alexandra jolt with an impact.

†~†~†

Alex only just managed to get her guard up in time. This 'Adrian' was good. Very good. He might actually have those belts.

He rained blows on her raised arms, some of which were hard enough to make her grunt. A kick to her side sent her skidding a foot away.

_If we were the same species…I'd be getting my ass handed to me._

Lisa and the dog had vanished. For a moment, Alex panicked, but then she realized she could go all out without worrying about her friend's safety. If the dog was with her Alex doubted Lisa's life was in danger.

Almost gleefully, she scythed her right leg around in a mirror of the kick that had nearly toppled her. Adrian didn't take it any better than she had, sliding three feet, but rushed her again with a jab at her solar plexus.

_I'm extremely glad Mom made me join a club in high school. Without Mark's weekly beatings I'd be _so_ screwed. _Alex thought as she blocked. _I still don't know how she convinced a judo club to let me in during the Fifties. _Another kick, aimed at her knees.

He had her almost entirely on the defensive; every time she tried to counter one of his moves, he found a gap in her guard and struck. It was rapidly turning into a stalemate, Alexandra's defense was as good as his offense but he was not allowing any chance for her to put her strength to use. One right hook and he'd be done for, but the son of a sow aimed for her nose or a pressure point every time she tried. Believe it or not, a broken nose hurt her just as much as anyone else.

_No choice I guess, I'm going to have to amp it up. _Alex began to sink inside herself.

_Ignore the noise, the ache in my arms, ignore everything but what needs to be done. _

At last, her mind went silent.

It had been some time since she had had to react as fast as this. She was the one on the offensive now, though Adrian avoided or deflected her attacks with a speed beyond any human's. She was glad Lisa had left.

"_I_ am a lab rat? What about yourself, Methuselah? Wouldn't your fellows delight in finding _you_?" She said with as much venom as would fit in her distorted voice as she dodged a charge. "Would you betray your own for such paltry gains as knowledge you already have? Idiot. The only reason we live safely is our anonymity. If you take that away there will be nothing left of us. _Genocide_. Is that truly _worth_ it to you?"

"Who is this _we_?" He grunted, "You are no more a Methuselah than your pet human." He blocked another kick at his stomach. "I don't give a damn about that. As long as I am satisfied, the world can burn for all I care."

Alex drew on more of her strength and she felt her teeth changing shape. _Can't go too much farther than this, I'm not trying to level the city. _ She could feel the blood in her veins moving.

Later, she learned that all the data in all the servers had been wiped, but that was later.

_I'm through with dragging this out._

She kicked him as hard as she could with the same kick she had used at the beginning of the fight; he flew a good twenty yards and hit the wall with enough force that she could hear his bones breaking from where she stood. There might have even been a dent in the wall. It was a good thing that the hall was mostly empty now. If someone had gotten in the way of Adrian's flight things would have gotten messy.

The only thing left to do was get out the door.

"Wh-ere d-do hyou thi-ink hyou're going?"

The panted, broken phrase froze Alex mid-step. "Out. You're in no shape to stop me, so let go of my coat."

"I do-on't th-think so."

Something huge hit her from behind.

She blacked out for a moment, and when she came to she was on her hands and knees. She tried to get up but her muscles wouldn't coordinate properly and she barely avoided mashing her nose when her arms gave out. She felt like she had bitten a high-voltage wire. _Electricity. He has an ability. Fine, if that's the way it's going to be…_ A little concentration, a quick adjustment and a small discharge, and she stood up.

The dumbfounded look on his face was totally worth it.

She gave him a rakish, twisted grin. "If you get to use fancy tricks, so do I." _And my talent trumps yours, you heartless bastard._

Before he recovered, she struck. She did the opposite of what she had used on herself. _I'll love to see how you manage to move without any electrical signals in your nerves. _Using a trick she had learned by accident (one that had cost her a week of school, though she did get her legs working again, eventually), she could reach into her opponent's body and stop the electron exchange in their nerve cells. This also applied to the brain of course. It worked best with metals, but as long as there were atoms, it was hers to manipulate. Adrian had lost the second he decided to show his talent. Electricity was part of magnetism—trying to attack her with it was as useful as attacking a generator with a metal bat.

She took out a small container of metallic dust that she had thought to bring with her in case of emergency, but he didn't give her a chance to use it. All the hair on her body stood up and she barely got a barrier up when a sizable lightning bolt struck from the ceiling.

She only managed to divert it because in her haste the container of dust broke when she put up the barrier, releasing its contents, but she was still blinded and deafened by the strike.

"Alex!" Lisa's panicked call rang out, and both of them froze in surprise.

"Heh." Adrian sneered.

Alexandra could feel the potential for another bolt forming and sprinted toward the other woman. "GET DOWN!"

She collided with Lisa, knocking her to the floor. Then the world turned white.

†~†~†

She had gotten worried when Alex didn't appear, so she went back into the building, telling the dog to "Stay."

She saw a white flash accompanied by a huge _CRAAACK_ and, idiot that she was, screamed, "Alex!"

"GET DOWN!" Alex roared.

Something hit her in the chest hard enough to wind her and she heard another deafening clap of thunder.

She lay on the ground, trying to gather her wits. Something moved at the edge of her vision and she managed to pick her head up enough to see a silvery shape standing a few feet away. She fought to focus her eyes but the shape still didn't make any sense. Alex didn't have wings.

Had an angel landed?

The angel gestured to a figure on the floor and swept a hand in a motion that included the entire room. Cracks formed in the walls as they bulged inward. The figure motioned again and Lisa could feel the walls grating as they were pulled inward. The ground shuddered and she suspected that the same thing was happening throughout the building.

She managed to roll onto her side and prop herself up.

With an almighty roar, the walls collapsed.

†~†~†

_I fainted, didn't I?_ Lisa blinked at the cloudy sky. Then memory slammed back. _Oh God, the building collapsed!_ She sat up…and promptly fell over. _Aaah! My head!_ The stabbing pain took a few minutes to recede and she sat up slowly this time. Her head still throbbed but it was manageable. Gingerly she felt the back of her head and found a lump of monstrous proportions.

_Alex? Where's Alex?_

She looked down and saw her friend lying next to her.

A warm, wet something licked at her ear and her surprised screech could have woken the dead. Then she saw the dog, which looked rather pleased with itself. "Oh, sorry puppy. Didn't mean to hurt your ears like that…"

"What…?" Alex groaned.

Lisa's mothering instinct kicked into full gear. "Alex? Are you all right? Anything broken? Pain anywhere?"

"…think 'm fine. Helluva headache though. Like I went drinking on an empty stomach…"

When she managed to stand up, Lisa dislodged several feathers from her clothes. She looked around and saw more scattered all around them.

"Help me up."

Alex took the offered hand and hauled herself to her feet. "Help me collect these feathers, would you?"

"_All_ of them?" There were an astounding number of them though for the most part they were concentrated around where the two of them had been.

"No, just most of them. I don't feel comfortable leaving any but we're pressed for time." Alex crouched down and began sweeping them up by the handful.

Lisa shrugged. Whatever, she'd ask Alex later when they had time to talk properly. They finished pretty quickly and stuffed them into a makeshift bag made from Lisa's coat.

Alex dialed the phone number of the phone their husbands had and told them that they were ready to leave.

*****End Chapter 16*****

Well, I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter, I practically sacrificed my English grade to write it. ;;_ I really wanted to get the 'escape from the Institute' thing over with so I wrote this whopper. I promise you won't be seeing them again for a while. ^_^

Yes, it always annoys me how there is no big pile of feathers when Abel transforms back, though I did think of an excuse for it.

For those of you who're like me and can't stand not knowing conversions, 5 kilometers = about 3 miles (or more accurately 10k = 6.3 mi). Trust me, I'm a skier, I know these things.


	17. Sunshine and Children

She didn't understand why people hated rain; it washed things clean and allowed for new beginnings. It watered the earth and reminded people that Nature would not be tamed. Even now, it was giving her the privacy to weep, and she let it wash away her past life.

Jac tugged on her arm, "Come on, we have to go."

†~†~†

"Lily! I told you not to wander off!" She huffed. Running around for an hour really took it out of you after sixty!

"Sorry, Auntie." The little redhead looked contrite. "Won' do it 'gain."

Lisa eyed the little imp. "Really? You said the same thing the last three times too."

"But I really mean it this time!"

Lisa sighed. "Just stay close, okay?

"'Kaaay!"

_Really, taking a walk shouldn't involve stifling the desire to put a leash on the toddler._

She and Jac had been "on the run"—if such a term could be applied to what they were doing—with Alex and Mat for close to six years. They had all acquired new identities when they moved out of America. In India they had a fresh start, though getting used to some of the local food was a bit more challenging—in Lisa's opinion—than getting used to being 'Elizabeth Marshall'. The name had been Alex's choice. "Very British!" She proclaimed. Really! It's not like they were buying shirts or something! And besides, this is INDIA, not the United Kingdom. She sighed. Alex could be such a ham.

"Auntie Liza! Can we go get i'cream?"

"Haven't we had enough sugar for one day, Lily?"

"Nooo." The little redhead skipped ahead and faced Lisa, hands behind her back and that puppy-eyes look on her face. "Just a litto bit? Please?" She articulated. She managed the 'l's pretty well for a not-quite-three year old.

Lisa weighed the chances of this treat sending Lily bouncing off the wall against her own desire for some sherbet, and the fact that she would be handing the imp over to her mother in less than an hour. _I am an 'aunt' after all, spoiling the kids rotten is in the job description._ "All right. You want mango, or something else?"

"Mango."

"Okay! Mango ice cream, here we come!" She started to march in place.

"Silly." The little girl giggled. She skipped alongside Lisa to the candy store that had her favorite flavor.

She remembered similar summers in Kentucky with Jay and Mick. Mick was much easier to hype up on sugar than Jay. Jay had even challenged Mick to a pixie stick eating contest, sibling sadism of one kind or another, and Mick had hallucinated that everything had flipped upside down afterward, clinging like a limpet to the built-in bookshelf. She had forbidden them pure sugar candy after that.

They ordered their treats and sat under an umbrella while they ate. Lisa normally avoided going out in the sun until around three in the afternoon when it wasn't so harsh, but Lily seemed to thrive under the nearly physical assault the sunlight became around noon. _Maybe Methuselah are part plant. That would explain it. _ The girl was getting a tan to rival some of the natives'. _Ah, if only I had that kind of adaptability, but I just burn._

After washing their sticky hands with a squirt from a drinking fountain, they started the walk back to the flat where the five of them lived.

†~†~†

Alexandra looked worriedly at the window overlooking the street. Lily and Lisa weren't back yet. They had left an hour and a half ago to go for a walk and Lisa had promised to be back thirty minutes ago.

Just as she was about to break their rule of no cell phone calls she spotted a bright red mop of hair bouncing through the crowd, and after a moment's search she spotted someone with brown and grey following. She sighed with relief and put away her phone.

Once the two of them had removed their shoes and dusted off their pants—she absolutely _refused_ to have any more street dirt tracked in than absolutely necessary—Alex sent Lily to finish cleaning up her mess from before the walk.

Apprehension curled around her stomach like a cold snake. "Lisa, I need to talk to you in private."

"Uh, sure…"

Alex herded Lisa into the sitting room and closed the door. "We might have to move again."

"They caught up so soon? We were sure to cover our tracks last time! We even got Hane to erase the public files!"

"I don't know, but if they have people watching for us wandering the street, or even a picture from a newspaper with one of us in the background…"

Lisa collapsed into a heap on the couch. "Have you told Mat or Jac yet?"

"No, and I don't know for sure if we will. It's only a hunch at this point and I'm not going to move until what I'm feeling becomes more than just a twinge in my gut. Don't worry," She anticipated Lisa's objection and cut her off, "I'm not making this less than it is. My prey instinct has gotten very sensitive over these last few years and even that isn't clamoring."

"But even so, even one close call is more than we can afford, the risk goes up exponentially every time. Even if it's just a whisper of a hunch we should pack up and go."

"Lisa, I don't think you understand how small of a hunch this is. If a normal hunch was the size of a marble, this hunch would be a virus. THAT is how small of a feeling I am talking about."

"Still…."

"Urgh. Lisa, give it a day. If I'm still feeling uneasy or you notice something we'll move immediately, okay?"

"All right."

Alex got up and opened the door to the kitchen, "What would you like? I got a delicious marsala blend from the spice shop. I promise it won't make flames shoot out of your nose like last time."

"It had better not! I thought I was going to have a heart attack!"

At that moment a brown blur, Sweetpea (once known as "Pooch"), came barging through the door and scrambled behind the couch, her spines narrowly missing poking holes in anything. It had taken a good year before the dog could keep the spikes along her back flat along her back. A gleefully shrieking Lily followed close behind and a rambunctious game of tag ensued.

Worries put aside, Lisa and Alex made a strategic retreat to the kitchen to start supper.

†~†~†

A week later, Alex had her whisper. They were getting closer, she could feel it. Centuries of caution had honed her intuition to near-psychic sensitivity, and she could feel that their time in New Delhi was coming to an end; she just hoped that they could get something set up before the first shoe dropped.

Small arms circled her ankle. "Slide Mama! Gimmie a ride p-l-ease!"

Smiling, she rolled her eyes and obligingly dragged her offspring across the floor.

†~†~†

Lisa glanced worriedly at the clock. Their contact wasn't late yet, but there was only two minutes left. She tore her eyes away from the second hand and forced herself to watch the people, and _tried_ not to act like she was anxious. 'Tried' being the operative word in that sentence. She sighed. One minute, thirty seconds. She mentally kicked herself and focused on her wedding ring, trying to lose herself in the opal's fiery blue and green.

So of course she jumped when someone sat opposite her.

"Hi!" Said the too-red-to-be-real redhead. "I just noticed you and realized that I had the book that you lent me a while ago, so here you go. I'm finished with it and I think I'll get my own copy instead of stealing yours, though I am tempted. I liked the ending a lot, very obvious in hindsight, though it caught me by surprise the first time."

She had never seen the man in her life, but he had to be her contact since random strangers didn't return books you never lent them. She glanced at the cover. _Core Being_ by Brandon Randall, a fiction/might-be-supernatural thriller that had been popular a while ago. It was well thumbed and a bit dog-eared and all in all looked like a favorite volume. "Thank you, I was starting to miss it. Care to join me for a bit?"

It turned out that he was a bit more of a sci-fi/fantasy fan than she was, having read such classics as _Honor Harrington _and _Wheel of Time_, and they had a fun debate on how well the predictions from old sci-fi matched up with the then-future. After their plates were clean they parted ways, and she had to restrain herself until she got home. It wouldn't do to try to decipher the code in public.

Of course, that changed the second she got inside. She barely waited until the door was closed before she kicked off her shoes and not-quite-ran into the kitchen. "Jac! Alex! Mat! The mail's in!"

Alex and Mat nearly materialized out of the air and Jac wasn't far behind. She held it out to the two non-humans. "You are faster at this than either of us."

Mat nipped the book out of her fingers and started flicking through it. After a minute or so, he had a piece of paper with a set of coordinates on it.

Jac looked at it. "Not too far from here. I think it's around the park nearby, I think I'll take a look, it's getting dark so there's less chance of someone seeing something weird." He regularly took evening strolls, so no one batted an eye; the risk was minimal and if someone asked around nothing would stand out.

He still waited about half an hour to leave though.

†~†~†

Two weeks later the boxes were packed and they were loading the little they owned into a rental van. She hated to have to move so much, it couldn't be good for Lily, but there was no helping it.

She sighed. At least the girl's family remained constant.

"Hey Alex, we have everything?"

The second floor window opened and Alexandra's voice floated out. "Yeah, that's the last of it."

"All right! Let's head out then!"

†~†~†

Lisa was sure that TREE would exact another favor at some point, but so far there had been nothing. No requests, no suggestions. Nothing. It was starting to make her nervous. There was no way that they weren't keeping tabs on this little carnival, but she had yet to see _any_ evidence that they knew she still existed, and lately things she couldn't see made her _exceedingly_ jumpy. She had brought it up last night after dinner and no one else had gotten any twinges either.

She realized she was grinding her teeth and forced herself to think about literally _anything_ else. _That take-out curry was quite good, I must finally be getting used to the amount of spice they add around here. What is Jacob plotting? Will there be a good view at this next place? I hope there's a bookstore nearby. Tree, bush, tree, tree, tree, field, pink flower, tree, TREE, is there going to be a request the next time? GAH!_

She gave up trying to not think and started playing the squiggle game with Lily.

After turning random scribbles into a fish, turtle, landscape, man drinking coffee and a close up of a comma—the last one was Lily's attempt to thwart her by drawing a huge mass of scribble—Lisa was tired enough to nap for a while.

†~†~†

Her escape was brief.

They stopped at a motel/restaurant and got room service, and as they were mopping up the last of their meal with _naan_ bread Alex decided to drop a bomb. One in the Tzar Bomba kiloton range.

"You know he survived, right?"

"Uh…Who survived what?"

"Adrian survived our fight."

Lisa's head tilted and she asked, "So, when are they going to pull the plug?" She joked. _What? Please tell me she's not serious…_

"I mean he _survived_ survived."

Her mind was reeling and she didn't like the look on Alex's face. "What? What is it?" _Please let there not be another shoe…_

"The only way he could have survived the shock is if he was a Methuselah. The amount of damage they can take is far more than even the hardiest human…" Alexandra's voice trailed off. She looked distinctly uncomfortable, like she was sitting on hot coals.

"Are you suggesting that Adrian… _Adrian_ _my ex-boyfriend… __**IS A FREAKING METHUSELAH?**__"_ For once she didn't particularly care that she was screeching.

Alex remained imperturbable. "I used enough power to pulp a human."

"Pulp?" She hoped she'd misheard.

"Think human plus sonic blender."

Everyone flinched.

Once her head stopped reeling she was livid. "WHAT THE HELL ALEX! YOU WAIT UNTIL NOW TO TELL ME THIS? WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME, OH, I DON'T KNOW, SIX YEARS AGO? YOU THINK THAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN A GOOD IDEA? YOU KNOW, BACK WHEN THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN A REAL FACTOR IN HOW WE WERE PLANNING? HUH?"

Alex tactfully refrained from pointing out Lisa's shifting pronoun choices. "I wasn't sure of it until later, and by then none of us were in any position to worry about it, and…I guess I forgot about it until today." Mat and Jac were nowhere in sight. She wanted to join them; the grey hair and extra weight did nothing to diminish the threat her friend was radiating.

Lisa forced herself take a deep breath before she started yelling words Lily shouldn't learn and counted to fifty in her head.

"All right, you forgot, that's fine. But could you leave me alone for a bit? I need to process this."

She sunk into her chair and rested her head in her hands as the other woman left.

†~†~†

That night she didn't sleep. Or rather, she slept enough to dream, and then woke up in a cold sweat. The red gleam in Adrian's eyes when he threatened her. The feral gleam in both combatant's eyes as they fought to kill or cripple. A jumbled terror of running from _something_ that was closing in, her legs heavy and the wind fighting her…and a white-haired angel. She woke up feeling like she hadn't slept a wink.

She stared into her coffee cup with the obscure hope that maybe, _just this once,_ it would act like a crystal ball or tea leaves. Or better yet, alphabet soup.

Slowly, the other three joined her at the fold-out table and she shook her head to clear it of that silly line of thought.

Jac, looking bleary-eyed and well rested (_dammit_) sat down next to her and she plucked a bit of down from the pillow out of his hair. _Down…feather—Angel!_ She suddenly remembered the image—_memory_—from her dream last night, and later she would remember picking up feathers among the rubble.

Mat and Alex shambled into the kitchen and helped themselves to hot coffee.

They sat in companionable silence for a while, until Lisa's face broke out in an evil smirk. "Speaking of things that should have been said long ago, I have a fuzzy memory of an angelic pair of wings adorning your back, Madame Mystery."

Alexandra looked a bit like a deer caught in headlights. She glanced at her husband and back at Lisa in a silent conversation with him.

Jac looked around the table and said, "If you'll pardon me, I think I have a taste for some fried bread this morning." He quickly vanished out the door. He tried as hard as he could to not learn anything about any of the mysteries that Lisa seemed to throw herself at. He was willing to follow his wife wherever she went, but there were some things that he didn't want to know. Namely, anything that would break his illusion that _Homo sapiens_ was the only intelligent species on the planet and _if _there was another, that they weren't terrifying monsters out of legend.

Mat rolled his eyes. "Fine, go ahead. It's 'by any other name' at this point."

The corner of the other woman's mouth tilted up, and she started to explain.

Lisa could barely believe what she was hearing. Vampires that preyed on vampires that preyed on humans, who were supposedly the top of the food chain. Abilities that made all but the most powerful weapons and subtlest technologies look like child's toys. And, as the cherry on the cake, they could fly.

"Wings? You have freaking WINGS?" Had been her reaction to THAT particular bit of information.

Alex looked slightly embarrassed. "It's been called our 'true form', though technically that's not correct. It is more of an…_alternate_ form. Some wit once called it our Berserker form—and that name is quite apt, actually. It's very similar to the Norse legends of the Viking warriors who possessed the strength of three men in their battle fury. We don't have much in the way of reason when we are that mad or desperate—you've heard of mothers lifting enormous weights off of their children? In a rational frame of mind such a thing would never be possible, but under certain conditions we can pull off things that normally _would_ be impossible. But when we do, it's just…flashier for us, than most other species." She finished quickly, trying to cover her discomfort with speed.

"Ah…" Was Lisa's weak reply. "A simple 'Yes' would have been fine you know…"

"Of course, we train ourselves once we reach a certain age to use whatever abilities we're given, so it's not entirely dependent on emotional state."

"Unngg..." She whimpered. The always-detached scientist residing inside her skull had taken a vacation, she couldn't think of any questions to ask…then she found one.

"Are you done? Any more revelations and my brain is going to start coming out of my ears."

Mat roared with laughter.

*****End Chapter 17*****

Whew… Well, that was interesting. I tried to keep the OMGWTF-ing to a minimum, but… *shrugs* I think Lisa's suspension bridge over the Belief River just broke in this chapter.

I feel that I have to give credit to Darth Stitch for her version of what happened after the final battle in the anime as there are several things in her fic, "Death Shall Have No Dominion" that heavily influenced my theory of how Crusniks work biologically, as well as prompting me to write this in the first place, so if you like this, thank her.

Omake:

Shadow: *goes back and looks at the early chapters of this fic* O.O WTF? I wrote like THAT?

Lisa: =_= Yes, hon, you did.

Alex: Poor thing. *pokes Lisa* Remember how YOU used to write in high school?

Lisa: *turns greenish* Oh…

Shadow: I AM SO SORRY TO ALL OF THE CHARACTERS FOR HAVING TO PUT UP WITH SUCH A HORRIBLE STYLE! *runs away sobbing*

Lisa: T.T Now I feel horrible…


End file.
